Overprotective
by elisabethjj
Summary: In the fallout of Katherine's betrayal [Fool Me Once 1.14], Damon is back at his hedonistic best. Stefan goes to Europe to track Katherine down before matters escalate, leaving Damon in Mystic Falls to watch over Elena. As Elena and Damon grow inexorably closer, she struggles to deal with the reality that Stefan might not be the only Salvatore brother with a place in her heart.
1. Chapter 1

**Overprotective**

_**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or recognisable place names/ aspects of the Vampire Diaries books/TV show. All rights etc. belong to the relevant parties, definitely not me. I am not making any profit from this small fanficlet, which is merely a tribute to enjoying the books/TV show.**_

'This is getting a little ridiculous, don't you think?' Elena said, as patiently as she could bear. The shadows behind her remained silent, but Elena knew she wasn't talking to herself. 'I know you're there,' she huffed, spinning to glare accusingly into the darkness.

'Oh, fine,' Damon drawled, rippling out of the shadows looking mightily unconcerned at Elena's ire. 'You caught me. I'm here.' He pulled a funny face, as if to say 'big whoop… _and_?'. 'More to the point,' he continued, '_you're_ here. Alone, at night, in a dark alley.'

'It's the pathway to the public library parking lot,' Elena said, incredulously.

Damon glanced about him.

'Hmm.' He arched one dark eyebrow. When he spoke it was reminiscent of a parent speaking to a particularly dim-witted, irresponsible child. 'Well, yes, but it's a _dark_ pathway to the public library parking lot. At _night_. And you're _alone_. I'm just making sure nothing happens to you, since you're trying so damn hard to get yourself into trouble.'

Elena stared at him, shaking her head. She shifted the pile of books she had just checked out to her other arm.

'You were more fun when you were just being evil.' She sighed heavily. 'This supernatural babysitter crap is really getting old, fast.'

Damon slung a casual arm around the young girl's shoulder. He grinned easily, in that predatory and unsettling way that the vampire had probably mastered decades ago.

'Hey, I'm just being a good big brother,' he told her. 'I promised Stefan I would look after you while he was gone.'

'And who thought you'd take your responsibility so seriously? Honestly, Damon, you're driving me nuts! I'm sure Stefan didn't mean for you to smother me to death with your concern. And why do you even give a damn? It's not like you haven't broken promises before.'

'Elena, you wound me,' Damon said, dramatically clutching at his chest. 'I'm making amends for my bad, wicked past!' He waggled his eyebrows. 'Besides, who knew you could get into so many dangerous situations? Protecting you from harm is a full-time job. I've hardly any time for evil-doing right now.'

As usual, Elena couldn't stay mad at Damon for too long. Although she was under no illusions about his appalling history, some of it far too recent for comfort, Stefan's brother just got under her skin. His charm and humour might be his best weapon as a predator, but Elena always found herself willing to give him another chance to show more of that tiny part of him already proven to be loyal, loving… human. As long as it didn't hurt Stefan, she wouldn't give up on Damon.

Elena felt her mouth curve into the barest of smiles, even as she shook her head at Damon's unrepentant sarcasm.

'Well, that's one good thing, I suppose,' she conceded. She smirked a little herself. 'Maybe the new, whipped Damon is an upgrade.'

'I am _not_ whipped.'

'No?' Elena queried, teasingly. 'You're carrying my books.' Damon had instinctively taken them from her as they started talking, seeing her uncomfortably shifting their weight. Now, he looked down at the offending volumes, aghast.

'I… you were… I was just, oh crap!' Damon rolled his eyes. 'This is why I don't spend time with… people! Before you know it you're being _nice_ without even knowing it.'

'It's called being a friend, Damon,' Elena said, softly, turning to look at him. He shifted under her serious gaze. 'Hey,' she called his attention back from the other side of the car park to her face. 'You _are_ being a good brother. And a good friend, to me.'

They had reached Elena's car. Damon met her gaze full-on with his dark, dark smouldering eyes. Elena gulped a little, as she always did when faced with that hypnotic Salvatore look. Apparently, it was something both brothers had in common, whether it was genetic or merely an undead perk. Delicately, Damon's free hand reached out and brushed a wisp of Elena's hair off her face and smoothed it behind her ear. Ever so gently ghosting along her skin, he traced his way back down her face until he took hold of her chin and tilted her face up to his.

'So, this friend thing,' he murmured.

'Hmm?' Elena breathed, wishing her heart wasn't racing and wishing even more she didn't know that his vampire hearing could track every traitorous beat of it. These past days Damon was truly making an effort, maybe for the first time since she had met him, taking his promise to Stefan so seriously and actually behaving quite decently to her. She didn't want to ruin it but her instincts screamed 'predator' when Damon got too close and she was straining to resist the 'flight' signals her weak, human body was sending her brain.

Refusing to give offence, she held perfectly still while Damon struggled to find the words to ask…

'Does it come with benefits?' His beautiful face stretched into a wide smile and before Elena could even absorb what he had said, Damon swooped down and planted a kiss on her lips.

'Meugh, ewww, Damon!' Elena squealed, pushing him off her. He let her, still chuckling happily at his little game. Elena dragged her sleeve along her mouth for good measure. 'What the hell, Damon? Don't ever, _ever_ do that again!'

'Oh, relax, Elena,' he shrugged her off, putting her books into the boot of her car, while she fumed and spluttered nearby. 'It was nothing you didn't enjoy.'

'Enjoy?' Elena's mouth dropped open. 'I did _not _enjoy it. I'm with Stefan, your own brother! I… I literally have no words. I don't know why I'm surprised. You won't change. You're incapable of it.' She stabbed an accusing finger in his general direction.

Damon shrugged and smirked.

'I'm more fun this way though, right?'

Elena got into the car and slammed the door behind her. Before she could pull out of the lot, Damon super-speeded to her open window and lent down so she could hear him. This time, there was no humour in his voice.

'I'm serious about keeping my promise to Stefan. There are other vampires around here and I'm going to keep you safe. Plus, I like you, Elena, which gives me an added incentive to keep my promise. But I am not your babysitter and I'm not your friendly neighbourhood vampire.'

'Noted,' Elena snapped. 'Now, let me go home.'

Damon stared at her for a second, then straightened up and gave an elaborate wave to indicate she should drive on.

'Don't invite any strangers into your house,' he advised with a smile, in the overly bright tone that fire-safety or anti-drugs speakers use in school assemblies.

'Bite me,' Elena muttered, then flushed as she realised her poor choice of words and saw Damon's grin widen.

'Flirt,' he replied happily, winking at her. Elena glared at him, somewhat glad he was leaving it at that. She put the car in gear and sped out of the parking lot quicker than Aunt Jenna would approve of. Once she was sure Damon wasn't following her at super vampire speed, she gave a yelp of frustration in the empty car.

Stefan had better hurry back soon, she thought. It was going to be a very long month.

Damon was crazy and manipulative and untrustworthy.

And the fact that her whole skin was still tingling was absolutely _nothing_ to do with his kiss.

***

Damon watched Elena while she slept that night, as he often had since moving back to Mystic Falls, especially before Stefan had been so permanently affixed to her side. He didn't know exactly what it was about this girl that interested him. She was so high and mighty for such a fragile thing. So proud and angry and, yes, he admired the fight in her. Elena thought he was such a monster, and he kind of enjoyed that. Damon was a killer, and unapologetic about it: a vampire who enjoyed the perks of the position. There was something so endearing about Elena's constant willingness to convince herself Damon could be redeemed.

When he had kissed her today, it had been just for the pleasure of watching her get disappointed and angry at him, and at herself, of course. Damon heard her racing heart, felt her momentarily melt into the kiss before she pushed him away, and he had been a vampire long enough to know the difference between fear and lust. Elena had both, along with a healthy dollop of guilt afterwards.

Yes, Elena was the most interesting person he had met in a long, long time and Damon couldn't lie to himself that the reason he was looking out for her was only because of a promise he gave to his brooding, tortured-soul of a younger brother.

Damon hoped Stefan took his time getting back to Mystic Falls. It was going to be a brilliant month for diabolical plans.

Smiling to himself, Damon tucked the fresh supply of vervain he had brought with him into Elena's school bag. He settled into the chair in the corner to wait for morning.

_A/N: Please review if you have any thoughts or comments! I'm just starting to upload my fics and I'm quite nervous about it!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Over-protective**

Disclaimer: I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show.

**Part 2**

After one week with her new Damon-shaped shadow, Elena was about ready to start sharpening pointy stakes.

'That's not a bad idea,' Damon said, when she told him exactly that, early one afternoon. They were on her front porch: Elena on the swing seat and Damon casually leaning against the wall, one leg bent at the knee. He ignored the intended insult in her original remark. 'Makes sense to have some kind of extra protection. I mean,' he looked at her sternly, waggling a finger in her direction, 'you should only use it as a last resort, when running or hiding is no longer an option.'

Elena glanced at him, exasperated.

'What if the vampire is really, _really_ annoying?' she asked.

Damon grinned.

'Then you should bear in mind that he can still snap your neck like a twig and drain your blood faster than a can of ice-cold soda on a hot day.'

'Nice imagery,' Elena muttered.

Damon enjoyed trying to frighten her far too much. If he only he knew he was really preaching to the converted. Elena had been putting on a brave face for Stefan's sake, but with Stefan off in Europe and God only knew how many vampires skulking around town with undeclared interests, Elena had never been so on edge. Still, she was determined not to let fear rule her life. There were things- life- to be getting on with, and when Stefan got back he was going to see that everything was fine. He had enough to contend with already and Elena would be damned if she was going to be another burden on him. No, Stefan was going to see just how strong she was and that he could rely on her to cope.

Snapped too from her thoughts with a jolt, she found Damon's sparkling onyx black eyes fixed on her. He looked interested, like her thoughts were scrolling across her face for him to read. The way he looked at her sometimes was so intense, so disturbing, that she could convince herself mind reading was among his enhanced vampire abilities. It wasn't, of course. At least, not as far as she knew. Oh, gross. Elena shivered slightly at that uncomfortable notion.

'Well,' Elena said, with forced brightness. 'Thanks for stopping by Damon. Bonnie will be here any minute now.'

The distractingly handsome vampire raised an eyebrow, but did not move from his relaxed position.

Elena smiled encouragingly and tried again.

'She's driving us to the new mall in Spring Vale. You should go before she gets here. Seriously, if people see us together many more times this week, ugly rumours are going to start.'

Damon's smile was not altogether pleasant, but, as usual, no less than swoon-worthy. It was a source of constant annoyance to Elena that Damon, unpleasant and just, well, plain _wrong_, in so many ways, was blessed with such a ridiculously attractive exterior. However dastardly the meaning behind one of his smiles might be, that unnaturally cute crinkle at the edge of his mouth, the smooth curve of his lips, well… The whole package was undeniably hot enough to send shivers of desire through any red-blooded female. However much in love she might be with another, much better, man.

'Playing the field with both the Salvatore brothers? Oh, Elena, it's only going to boost your market value,' he said, with an evil little leer. 'The sibling thing always hits that extra-credit kink with the locals.'

'Yes, and I'm sure Stefan will see it that way when he gets home,' Elena returned, flatly.

Damon's eyes flashed in amusement.

'Stefan's a big boy. He can take care of himself,' he noted. 'Besides, he's the one who asked me to step in for him and watch over you. How am I supposed to do that without being close to you?'

'Er, they're called cell phones?' Elena pointed out. She mimed putting a phone to her ear. 'Hi, Damon? There's a big scary vampire outside my window. Could you just pop over and... what's that? You're already here because you have super vampire speed? How conveniently that's worked out!'

Damon mock glared and raised his own imaginary cell phone to his ear.

'Hi, Stefan? Bad news. I knowwe made a deal that if you went to Europe, I would keep your sweet little girlfriend safe from harm until you come back and wrap her up all safe in the cotton wool of your love again. Unfortunately, Elena was on the other side of town when a pesky vampire attacked her. Bit of a mishap: even with super-speed I couldn't get there in the three seconds it took for him to rip her throat out. You're not mad though, right? I was respecting her wishes for personal space.'

Damon finished his speech with a dismissive flourish of his hand, and stared at Elena like she was a complete fool.

Elena rolled her eyes. That, of course, was the real reason Damon was going out of his way to fulfil his promise to Stefan. The only way Stefan knew he could trust his brother to watch over Elena. What Stefan was doing in Europe would ensure both Salvatore brothers' survived the coming vampire war, and only Stefan could do it. Damon knew he had to keep Stefan motivated to work with him in this. Stefan was sure that Damon's survival instinct and hunger for power, not to mention vengeance, would buy his faithfulness in protecting Elena, just for a short while. Elena, for her part, was sure Damon could otherwise care less if she lived or died. Like every other person on the planet, except maybe for Stefan, she was worth to Damon no more than what entertainment, leverage or, at a push, blood she could provide him in a particular situation.

'Fine,' she said. 'But I think I can manage a trip to the mall with Bonnie in the afternoon sunshine. How about I let you know if I'm going out anywhere tonight and, if I am, I promise you can stalk me to your heart's content.'

Elena looked at Damon expectantly, waiting for his response. Finally, he pushed off the wall and started to walk to the edge of the porch steps. As he passed, he stopped just next to her, so they were shoulder to shoulder, and leaned in.

'It's a Friday night, Elena,' he mocked her, in a dangerously sexy whisper. 'Unless I'm mistaken, that is prime time for sitting in your bedroom moping about how much you miss Stefan and writing in your diary.'

The dark-haired girl flushed with embarrassment and anger.

'As opposed to trawling bars for easy meals, only able to seduce your marks with mind-control?' Elena asked archly. 'That's basically cheating, right?' She was quite pleased at how steadily her voice came out. She held his gaze stubbornly, and after a second Damon let out short burst of delighted laughter.

The conversation, such as it was, was brought to an untimely end by the chirp of Elena's cell phone. Huffing, she pulled it out of her jeans pocket and flipped it open.

'Hey,' she murmured a greeting into the handset.

It was Bonnie on the other end. Damon could hear every word down the receiver as clearly as if he had the phone pressed to his own ear. Bonnie was really sorry to let Elena down at the last minute, but she had to help her grandmother out unexpectedly this afternoon, and would Elena hate her if she asked for a rain check on their trip to the new mall? Elena made all the necessary assurances, and finished the conversation quickly.

Sighing, she put the phone away again. She was thinking of the new outfit that she really needed to by before this weekend. If she didn't go today, when would she have time? Elena did a quick mental rundown of the stores in town, but there was nowhere in Mystic Falls that stocked anything elegant enough for a formal occasion. Her gaze flickered briefly to Damon, who was looking at her with an expectant, smug face. She looked away and grimaced. Of course, he had heard everything. Inwardly, her need for a new dress wrestled with her pride. She couldn't ask him. She wouldn't, she-

'Oh, for heaven's sake, get in the car,' Damon said, rolling his eyes, and smirking at the obvious discomfort in Elena's face.

'I didn't-'

'Uh-huh. So you don't want a lift?' Damon queried, halfway into the driver's seat already.

'Um, I… You'd drive me to the mall?' Elena was faintly disbelieving. Sardonic, homicidal vampires were not the ideal choice of shopping buddies, all things considered.

'If you ask nicely,' Damon told her, and pulled his door shut.

Hardly believing what she was doing, Elena walked to the passenger side and peered hesitantly into the vehicle. It all looked normal enough, but with Damon there was bound to be a catch. Was a shopping trip really worth being in Damon's debt?

'I tell you what,' Damon proposed, doing that scary thing were he answered her thoughts before she could voice them. 'I'll drive you to Spring Vale, and you can repay me by coming out tonight instead of moping at home. If I've got to follow you about at night, I'd really rather you were doing something less pathetic.

Elena blinked rapidly.

'Um, go out with you?' she queried.

'Geez, relax,' he told her in decent impression of an all-American college boy voice. 'I'm not putting the moves on. Gosh, you could be my sister-in-law one day. We'll just grab a drink and you can let your hair down a little, ok?'

Well, truth be told, Elena was getting a little tired of sitting around missing Stefan. It was pretty miserable. If Bonnie was busy with her grandma, and Caroline and Matt were off somewhere, doing whatever the hell it was they were doing, then maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to accept Damon's deal. After all, she really did need to go shopping.

'Wait a minute, mister' she said sharply. 'When you say grab a drink…?'

Damon smiled a very wide smile. His face was all innocence but those all-seeing eyes sparkled with otherness.

'Restricted to what we can buy at a regular bar,' he assured her.

Far from assured, but feeling her will-power slipping from her grasp, Elena gave a small smile and got into the car.

'Let's go,' she said, and held on tight as Damon grinned and put his foot down.

TBC

_A/N : I know, I haven't even said exactly what Stefan is doing in Europe yet. I haven't really decided, to be honest, it's so blatantly unimportant- I just needed to get him out of the way so Damon could have his fair chance with Elena! _

_If people are still interested after part 2, I will update as soon as poss. I have __a lot of ideas for where this is all headed. _

_Thanks to those you reviewed part 1. I originally wrote this as a one-shot, but your kind words encouraged me to push it a bit further, and now the muse is on a roll.  
Please let me know what you think of this chapter as well! Thanks for reading. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Overprotective**

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show.

**Part 3**

'You know, I'm hurt by what you said.'

The slightly muffled voice coming through the curtain sounded more wolfish and arrogant than hurt and Elena rolled her eyes as she tugged a sheath of rose pink satin over her head.

'What was that?' she asked, disinterestedly. She heard Damon rearrange his limbs over the hard leather couch he was lounging on.

'Earlier, on your porch, you said I cheat to seduce women. With my,' he lowered his voice to a stage whisper, '_powers_'. Oh, brother, Elena could practically see the pout. She did her best to concentrate on reaching around to her back to secure the intricate fastenings of the dress.

'You were just mad at me, right?' Damon's disembodied voice questioned. 'You don't really think that?'

Was he serious? Elena wondered if there were any bounds to his ego. He knew fully well the truth of the situation. Sure, Damon was a complete ass. He was unreliable, untrustworthy and manipulative. It wasn't like that had stopped any other guy in the world from inexplicable success in the romance stakes, though. Add to that Damon's unquestionable good looks (dark hair, eyes that can turn from sapphire blue into twin pools of black molasses, cheekbones you could cut glass on, that damned dimple…) and pitch-perfect never aging physique and, well. It was an unfortunate fact of life that there would always be a whole host of girls to literally throw themselves at Damon Salvatore's feet.

To give Damon his due, Elena tried to be charitable, he was also quite charming and pretty fun to be around. As long as you could forget how he applied the same endearing sense of glee to, oh, say, _killing_ people and _drinking their blood_.

Not anymore, Elena told herself. Damon had promised Stefan all that was at an end. Well, the killing people anyway. It was the only reason Stefan had agreed to Damon sticking around in Mystic Falls after the Event They Did Not Speak Of.

'Need a hand with that?' Damon murmured in her ear, nearly making Elena jump out of her skin. The vampire had appeared on entirely the _wrong_ side of the fitting room curtain. Instinctively, Elena clutched at her dress, making sure she was decently covered.

Not waiting for a response, Damon's fingers were already at work on the tiny beaded fastenings. For something to do, Elena smoothed the front of the gown against her stomach, feeling the fabric pull and fit into place firmly against her body as Damon gently tugged the corset braiding to optimum tightness. She could feel his cool fingers ghosting against the skin of her back and her reaction was embarrassing. A kind of tingle shivered down her spine and the resulting blush, she was sure, stained from her cheeks and right across her chest. Unwanted heat bloomed somewhere deep in her belly, and her heart beat quickened, pounded harder even as she tried to focus on calm, cool thoughts.

If he noticed, Damon didn't say anything, but as he secured the last fastening his hands brushed briefly on her bare shoulder and his eyes (scary, dark and… hungry?) met her own in the mirror. Out of some unconscious prompting, Elena's fingers moved to Stefan's necklace at her throat, assuring herself of the vervain's protection. It had a double effect though, as it was Stefan's necklace and suddenly she felt that there were three of them in the cramped space of the changing room. Something cold and unpleasant, like guilt, crept into her stomach and Elena tore herself away from the thrilling hold of Damon's eyes.

She hadn't done anything wrong, Elena reasoned. She loved Stefan beyond sense, she would never betray him in any way. It was just a physical reaction her body had to Damon. It was his vampire attraction, difficult to resist even though her vervain decorations prevented him from compelling her. Also, Damon looked a bit like Stefan. They were brothers after all, and they had a lot in common. That was probably what it was. She was just missing Stefan. They had never been apart this long since they started dating and she was really missing the, uh, special parts of their relationship. It was hormones. Vampire attraction and missing Stefan and stupid teenage hormones and absolutely, positively, nothing to do with Damon.

Elena noticed the corner of Damon's mouth quirk up in the tiniest smile.

'You haven't answered me,' he commented. His voice was deep and honeyed. 'Do you really think I have any trouble seducing a woman?'

He had been playing her, she realised. It was just a game to him. Proving he could do anything he wanted.

Anger and a little bit of relief flashed through her, but disappeared almost as quickly. It was just Damon, after all, Elena thought. It basically came back to the same one thing:

'You're an ass,' she informed him, glibly, and pushed him back outside of the curtain. His laughter trailed back into the cubicle and she heard him settle again on the couch.

'Get that one,' he said, in a more normal tone of voice. 'The dress. It looks beautiful on you.'

Elena sighed to herself and turned back to the mirror. The dusky pink shade did really suit her barely tanned skin and chestnut hair. The strapless bodice, hand embroidered with tiny pearl-like beading, met a full princess skirt that trailed to the floor. Once she slipped a pair of heels on, it would be perfect. Damon was right; this was definitely the dress for the occasion. It was just a shame Stefan would not be here to appreciate it.

Frowning slightly, her pleasure at finding the perfect dress somewhat marred, Elena pressed the buzzer for the assistant, instead of seeking Damon's assistance in undoing the frock again.

When she emerged from the cubicle, she was once again jean-and-t-shirt clad, clutching the bulky material of the satin gown to her front. Damon was sprawled over half the sofa, his legs flopped over one the leather arms, earning him curious and slightly unnerved looks from two men across the waiting area. The look of undisguised lust for Damon on the dressing room assistant's face did not escape Elena's notice as she made her escape, Damon loping happily at her side.

'What's next?' he asked, cheerfully. 'Matching shoes?'

***

Damon brought his black convertible to a smooth stop in the small parking lot. A deal was a deal, so, in return for Damon driving her to the shopping mall, Elena had upheld her end of the bargain and allowed Damon to choose where they went next from there. As far as Elena knew, Damon had never been to Spring Vale before today, but he had seemed to have no problem locating a bar in the trendy new-build complex, pulsating with guitar riffs and a throng of excited heartbeats.

The night air was turning cool as Elena got out of the car and she wrapped her arms around herself briefly. She had left the house in a thin cotton shirt, but now she wished she had thought to pop back inside for a sweater. Damon shot a glance at her across the car, then, in a blur of super speed, he was at her side, sliding his leather jacket around her shoulders.

'Thanks,' she said, surprised. Damon nodded, and gestured to the entrance.

'Shall we?'

Inside, the place was not as bad as Elena had imagined. They found a corner booth, somewhat shielded from the hustle of the main bar. Over Damon's shoulder, Elena watched a group of drunken pretty girls squealing and dancing round a fancy looking juke-box. They were, quite deliberately, drawing the attention of more than a few of the guys in the room, and the atmosphere seemed charged, but in a friendly way. Plenty of couples were tucked into the small, clean booths, and the bar staff were dashing around, working double-time to serve all the tables. Elena ordered a fruity vodka-laced cocktail she had never heard of before, from the menu that Damon waved under her face. Damon got a bottle of tequila and two glasses. He grinned when he saw the face Elena pulled after the server left the table.

'This is not going to be like the last time you took me to a bar,' Elena warned him. 'I'm not going to let you lead me astray this time.'

'Me?' Damon smirked at her. 'Please. You were firmly in the driving seat, in Georgia. I was merely the enabler and, admit it, you had a good time.'

Elena raised her eyebrows and sipped delicately from one of the three straws protruding from her drink. She allowed him a tiny, sweet smile.

'This is really good,' she said, pleased. 'Okay, I'll admit Georgia was a little bit fun. Only until I had to talk that vampire out of killing you, though.' She frowned delicately with the memory. 'You are such an ass. If you didn't go around doing things like… what you did to Lexi, you would have a lot less people wanting you dead.'

'Are you lecturing me?' Damon seemed genuinely amused, the dimples around his mouth appearing accordingly.

'Maybe I am,' Elena said, boldly. 'Maybe you need lecturing.' She wasn't sure lecturing was the appropriate response to someone killing another person, much less a friend of his own brother's, but she had to try _something_.

'Maybe I did you a favour.' Damon knocked back two fingers of tequila.

'How so?'

'Come on,' he quirked a brow at her. 'Did you really want Lexi hanging around Stefan doing the whole 'hot best friend' routine? I know that bothered you.'

Elena flushed, betraying to Damon instantly that he had hit a nerve.

'Oh, I'm right, aren't I?' he crowed.

'No,' Elena snapped. 'Okay, maybe a little, but I didn't want Lexi dead. Well, maybe I didn't really care if she was dead, but I cared that Stefan was hurt by it. I would never be grateful for anything that caused Stefan pain.'

'Stefan loves pain,' Damon shrugged. 'Emo little nancy.' The last part was muttered to himself, but Elena glared at him anyway.

'What about you?'

'What about me?'

'You must love misery. You bring it on yourself. Talking of Georgia, look at Bree: have you even spoken to her since you behaved so badly at her bar?'

Damon had forgotten Elena did not know how it had ended with Bree. He was not sorry he had killed her, but Bree's betrayal had really hurt him and he did not like to dwell on it.

'If I ever cross paths with Bree in the future, I can't believe she would have anything nice to say to me,' he admitted, darkly. Elena tried to puzzle out the look on Damon's face. She thought she was starting to have a basic understanding of the flashes of genuine emotion that slipped through the everyday smooth and sadistic Damon-façade. After what had happened with Katherine, and The Event That Must Not Be Talked About, she could not pretend that Damon was not hiding a heart somewhere in that undead body of his.

'You cared about her, at some point,' Elena said, encouragingly.

Damon pulled a face at her.

'I wouldn't quite say that. Bree was fun. A real good-time girl. We had a fling, that's all. A few good laughs. No big deal.'

'It seemed like a big deal when she laid a wet one right on you as soon as you walked into the bar,' Elena observed, grinning. She had all but finished the fruity drink, which had gone down way too easily and was making her lips sticky and sugary.

'What can I say?' Damon leered. 'I make a good impression.'

Elena harrumphed, sounding unconvinced. She glanced at Damon curiously.

'How long ago did you two-?' she asked.

'Hmmm. Let's see now,' Damon considered for a second. 'Bree was very young. No more than nineteen I think. So, over twenty years ago.' He smiled wickedly. 'Gee, makes me feel old.'

'You may feel old,' Elena said, the effects of the alcohol obviously lowering her conversational inhibitions, 'but she looked waaaay older than you. It was a little bit creepy when she kissed you, actually.'

Damon locked gazes with Elena across the table.

'That's the nature of the beast, kiddo,' he said, tilting his head thoughtfully. 'Bree got older and I didn't. You should see the state now of the women I was banging in the 1950's.'

'Ewww, Damon, that's gross.' Elena scrunched up her face in revulsion.

He looked at her without a scrap of humour.

'That's reality,' he told her.

'Ah,' Elena sighed, 'the proverbial elephant in the room.'

'Or substitute supernatural equivalent,' Damon confirmed. He pushed a glass across the table at her and lifted the tequila bottle to pour into it. 'You want?'

Elena nodded and watched the clear liquid fill the stubby tumbler. She was probably going to need it, if the conversation was heading this way.

'I don't need the lecture, Damon.'

'Maybe you do.' Damon threw her earlier words back at her. He leaned in across the table towards her and made sure her pretty brown eyes were fully captured. 'Elena, the girls I had in the 1950's? I can barely remember their faces. The ones fifty years before that? I have a vague memory of one or two.'

'It's not like that with Stefan and me though,' Elena argued. 'You never loved any of those girls.'

'Okay,' Damon allowed. 'So you and Stefan have an all-time epic life-shattering love. So in a hundred years when your corpse is rotting in the ground he'll still be weeping over a strip of pictures of you two rounding second base in the photo-booth at the mall. So what? You'll still be dead. Stefan will still be alone and heartbroken.'

'So what, now you're a relationship counsellor?'

Damon smirked.

'Avoiding the point much?'

Elena sighed, toying with her glass. She suddenly shot back half the tequila in one gulp. It burned going down, and she gasped, making Damon laugh. He reached across and refreshed her drink.

'You know if you want to be with him you have to become one of us,' Damon said. 'Stefan's too irritatingly noble to put it that bluntly, but you're not stupid Elena.'

'Honestly?' Elena said, shifting her eyes to Damon and willing him to see that she was about to share something important. He apparently got the message, from her way he waited patiently for her to speak. Elena didn't quite know why she was about to share her innermost thoughts with Damon, but really who else could understand this? She took a deep breath and plunged in at the deep end.

'As much as the thought of becoming a vampire terrifies me, it's much more than that,' she admitted. Damon quirked a questioning eyebrow. Elena was not quite sure how Damon was going to react to this next part, but she was off and rolling now, so she might as well get it all out. 'I look exactly like Katherine.' She paused and checked to see Damon's reaction, but his expression was unchanged.

'I hate that I look like her,' Elena continued. 'It's hard enough for me to know that Stefan loved her first. And I hate knowing that every time _you_ look at me you must see Katherine too.' Something dark flashed in Damon's eyes, but he did not say anything. 'I just worry that, if I was turned into a vampire, I might _become_ her. I might become Katherine. Stefan might not be able to tell the difference anymore.'

Elena finished her confession and quickly drank the remaining tequila in her glass. She reached for the bottle to pour another, but was stopped short by Damon's hands closing over her own.

'I don't think we need any more of that,' he said wryly. He reached one hand to brush a delicate stand of hair back off her face, then ran one slender finger under her chin, raising her eyes to meet his. 'Elena Gilbert,' he said, solemnly, 'I know I speak for both Stefan and myself when I say that you could never be anything like Katherine, whether you are human or vampire. When I see you, it is _only_ you. You are your own person and,' he smiled endearingly, 'if I do say so myself, that person is not so bad to know.'

Elena felt something shamefully close to tears stinging behind her eyes.

'Anyway,' she tried to laugh the heavy conversation off. 'I'm getting ahead of myself. Stefan and I haven't even been together for a year yet. He might meet some blonde bombshell in Europe and decide he likes her more.'

'Ah,' Damon nodded. 'Maybe. Though if there are actually two women in the world at the same time that find my little brother's brooding and self-loathing wallowing a turn-on I may need to meet the sun without any bling on my finger.'

Elena leaned across the table to punch Damon's arm.

'Ass,' she said.

'Bitch.'

'Devil.' The devil grinned, pleased.

'Hey,' Elena reprimanded him. 'I thought you promised me a fun night out. There was supposed to be hair-letting-down, if I remember rightly.' Damon nodded and spread out his hands in surrender.

'I have been woefully remiss,' he admitted, rising to his feet with a devastatingly sexy stretch, hand behind shoulder. He nodded to the makeshift dance floor in the centre of the room. 'Wanna dance?'

The jukebox was filling the bar with one of the catchier Scissor Sisters numbers, and Elena found herself nodding enthusiastically. Damon grabbed her hand in a playful lunge and tugged her across the room until they were at the centre of the boisterous crowd, shimmying and laughing together.

The song ended too quickly, and to Elena's dismay the next notes to fill the air heralded the start of a slow-tempo love song. As dancers around them paired up, Elena shifted uncomfortably. There was no way she could stand any more emotionally charged, intense or awkard moments tonight. When she glanced up at Damon, she was relieved to find him light-hearted, grinning and obviously not taking it too seriously.

'I won't bite,' he teased, as he pulled her into a close, but thankfully not inappropriately so, embrace. Smiling, Elena relaxed into his arms and let him lead her in an elegant twirl around the floor.

'So tell me about this dance on Saturday that you've bought the dress for,' Damon prompted. Happily, Elena obliged.

**TBC...**

_**Please review, it really does keep joy in my heart and keeps me writing!** **:-)**_

_Sorry it has been a wait for the update, but I wrote a full (really fun, but in a twisted way) chapter and then realised it just needed to go later in the story, so I am having to fill in the gaps now. The one I wrote is probably better placed at chapter 5 or 6, and I can't wait till it's postin'-time! I hope you all enjoy this new part anyway. Doesn't help that Damon and Elena's relationship has completely changed in canon with one foul (amazing) swoop in 'Fool Me Once', so I know feel like I'm writing them slightly OOC. Small price to pay for the sheer joy of that episode, which FYI made me cry actual real life tears. The love triangle (quadrangle?!) is off and rolling. Anyway, thanks for reading!_


	4. Chapter 4

**Overprotective**

Disclaimer: I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show.

_A/N: Okay, firstly thank you so much to each and every person who has reviewed this story. It is so much appreciated, and I love to hear all your thoughts and ideas! Secondly, a huge apology it has taken this long to update. If you stick with me I hope you'll think the next few chapters make up for it. They will be bringing the Delena luuurve. :-)_

**Part 4**

Elena looked heartbreakingly beautiful when Damon saw her outside the Smallwood's manor house. The dark, starry night was punctuated with the sound of teenaged revelry drifting out from the Mystic Falls High School senior dance, hosted by Mayor Smallwood and his wife, in the manor's grand ballroom. The rose pink satin gown was both fresh and elegant against her healthy, summer skin, and when Damon allowed his eyes to travel up to her face, his undead heart expanded almost painfully. Elena's sleek mahogany hair, that usually hung poker straight to beneath her shoulders, was tonight arranged in soft, tumbling curls, pulled back from her face.

Despite the assurances he had made Elena only a few days ago, Damon could not help the harsh gasp that escaped him or the name that raced fleetingly across his mind: _Katherine_. In the party gown, and with her hair arranged so differently, Elena looked more like her Satan-spawned predecessor than Damon could bear. He had not lied when he told her that she could never be anything like Katherine. Damon had got so used to being around Elena that, much like recognising one identical twin that you know much better than their sibling, Damon genuinely was not reminded of his vampire ex-lover each time he saw Elena. Tonight though, for the barest of moments, he felt he could have been in 1864 staring at Katherine across the party.

Then Matt, standing near to Elena, said something that made her face crease in laughter, and the illusion shattered. Every expression and every movement was so uniquely _Elena _that Damon could not help smiling. This evening, surrounded by Bonnie, Caroline and the rest of her friends, Elena looked seventeen in a way that Katherine never truly had. There was no calculation in the way Elena interacted with those around her, no ulterior motive in her favours and no selfishness behind those angel-like hazel eyes. She was real, vibrant and unmistakably _alive_.

Damon narrowed his eyes and focused across the distance between them. He was lurking in the night shadows of the wooded copse bordering one side of the Smallwood's garden, and there were two lawns and a small lake between that and the paved terrace where Elena and her friends had stepped out for some fresh air. There was a slightly drunk couple fumbling their way towards ecstasy against the trees half way towards the water, and Damon was struggling with the temptation to use them as a convenient midnight snack. He sighed, rolling his eyes to himself. He had promised Elena that he would not feed from the guests at the party tonight. In Damon's view, it was cruel and unusual punishment to keep him from an evening of pretty young girls dressed up and looking for romance. He loved parties and dancing, and he loved nubile, young and careless meals-on-legs even better.

Damon had given the promise though, at Elena's insistence, after she shot down Damon's chivalrously made offer to accompany her to the dance and told him that she was not going to put Caroline through the trauma of his presence again. _Caroline_, pah! Damon grimaced. He did not understand why Elena cared so much what that insignificant stupid human was feeling. If it was going to stress Elena out so much, he had already offered to compel Caroline again into being perfectly at ease in his company. His offer, to Damon's confusion, had seemed to fall flat with Elena. Human women! Sometimes he did not know how Stefan stood it. The simply naivety of Elena's demand made no difference though. Either way, Damon Salvatore did not break a promise to Elena Gilbert.

Damon had lapped the Smallwood's estate twice already, and there was not a sniff of another vampire in the vicinity. He could see the dull glint of Elena's vervain-laced accessories and he knew she had an extra vial of pure extract in the beaded puff bag dangling from her wrist. Damon's stomach was feeling very empty and that meant he was getting irritable. With one last glance at Elena's smiling face, Damon turned and vanished into the shadows, off to look for his next meal.

Elena was glad when Matt and Caroline went back inside to re-join the dancing. She was enjoying the fresh air, but enduring her friends' new-found happiness was a little hard to bear, with how much Elena was missing Stefan tonight. The dance was perfect, except for having Stefan to share it with. With a pang of guilt, Elena acknowledged there was one other person she would like to share tonight with. The party would definitely be more fun if Damon was there with her. At least Damon would dance with her, and even his arrogance and snarky commentary on everyone else's clothes and behaviour would have amused her.

Still, Elena knew she had done the right thing asking him to stay away from the dance. There were enough people here that it was perfectly safe for her, and Damon was only on the other end of the phone if anything happened. It would not have been fair for Caroline to have to see Damon; Elena knew that her perky blonde friend was still really freaked out and uncertain about seeing Damon after he had so badly messed with her mind while he was feeding on her. Caroline was just starting to get her previously irrepressible confidence back, now things were getting real between her and Matt. Speaking of Matt, even though he did not know about Damon's role in his sister Vicki's 'disappearance', Elena privately thought it would be awful to parade Damon under Matt's nose as a friendly acquaintance. Matt, dear, sweet Matt, would probably try to be nice to Damon, and that thought made Elena's stomach uneasy.

If she was really honest with herself though, Elena knew that protecting Caroline and Matt was really an excuse. Things over the past few weeks had been getting so intense, with all the time she and Damon had spent together. It was not like hanging out with a teenage boy; everything about Damon was coloured with nearly two hundred years of his misspent perpetual youth, and tinged in darkness. Damon might be fun and wild and he might appear irreverent, but there was a deeply emotional undercurrent that just picked you up and swept you along for the ride. It was the same with Stefan, to an extent, but because he was more in control of his darker instincts than Damon, it was somehow less overwhelming. When Elena was with Damon, the world seemed to close in around the two of them, and it was difficult to remember anything else in life was still important.

Elena had been relishing a night of High School-style fun, with normal teenage angst and only humans allowed. Was it so wrong to want a night free from vampires and all their associated baggage? The only problem was, now that it was here, the night seemed somehow empty.

'Hey, what's on your mind, girlfriend?' Bonnie chirped, cutting through the reflective musings of Elena's mind. Elena glanced sideways at her best friend, and smiled half-heartedly. 'I thought you were having a good time?' chided the young witch, gently.

'I was. I mean, I am,' Elena reassured her. 'It's just, I really, really miss Stefan this evening.' She worried on her bottom lip as she stared out across the garden, down to the lake. Bonnie was her best friend, but there was no way she was mentioning her growing friendship with Damon to the witch. Other people might think it was sweet that Stefan's big brother was looking out for Elena while Stefan was 'visiting a sick relative in Europe', but Bonnie knew first-hand what Damon was and had already made her views perfectly clear. Where Damon was concerned, Elena should keep well clear of him.

'I know hon,' Bonnie commiserated. 'It's hard, but Stefan will be back soon, right?'

'I don't really know. Truthfully, I don't think he really knows how long it will take.'

'Right,' Bonnie said, frowning lightly. 'To track down those really old vampires, right?'

'Yes. Stefan needs to find one of the original vampires, the ones that were never human to begin with. Stefan and Damon call them the 'Old Ones'.'

'And he needs to do this to beg for mercy since he and Damon inadvertently started, like, a vampire civil war.' Bonnie raised an eyebrow questioningly. 'Hey, I'm just trying to keep track of what's going on.'

Elena pulled a face.

'Kind of. You remember how Katherine- the vampire that turned Stefan and Damon and that Damon was, or is, obsessively in love with- wasn't in the tomb when we opened it?'

'How could I forget?' Bonnie said bleakly.

'I'm sorry, Bonnie,' Elena said, knowing the girl was thinking of her Grams dying because of casting the spell to open the tomb. 'The thing is, there was something belonging to Katherine in the tomb. Turns out, the whole reason Katherine came to Mystic Falls back in 1864 was no coincidence. She was travelling the world, making an army of newly turned vampires, all completely besotted with her and therefore eternally loyal.'

'Why?' Bonnie breathed, wide eyed.

Elena smirked coldly, her hatred for Katherine turning like a hot knife in her heart.

'Because Katherine was devoted to the vampire that made her, an Old One called Klaus. I don't really understand it all, but basically this Klaus was planning some kind of coup of the other Old Ones, and Katherine was building him an army to do it with.'

'So what had Katherine left in the tomb?'

'For starters, I guess, some of the strongest vampires Katherine made. Those could be replaced,' Elena shrugged, 'but the real problem was an amulet. It was some ancient powerful charm. Apparently Katherine had it when she came to Mystic Falls, on her way to meet up with Klaus and give him the amulet. I guess he needed it to perform a kind of ritual that was supposed to make him and his vampire groupies crazy strong, like powerful enough to go up against the other Old Ones. When everything went down in 1864, the amulet ended up in the tomb as well.'

'So, why didn't Katherine try to open the tomb herself, before?' Bonnie wondered.

'Nobody knew how to,' explained Elena. 'Katherine was smart though, and Klaus was patient. They knew that Damon was so madly in love with Katherine that as long as he thought she was trapped in that tomb, one day he would find a way in. She played him.'

'So she and Klaus just kicked back and waited?' Bonnie asked, incredulous. Then her expression changed into disgust. 'And we came along and played right into their hands.'

'We couldn't have known,' Elena said, wearily, repeating the same thing Stefan had told her over and over, and sounding no more convinced than he had. 'Stefan and Damon both thought she was down there, trapped with the others. When the other vampires escaped after we opened the seal, one of them had Klaus' amulet. Of course he ran straight to the arms of Katherine dearest, so now as far as she and Klaus are concerned I guess its game on'.

Bonnie was quiet for a moment, trying to absorb the politics of this strange other world and co-existed with their own, or maybe _was_ their own now. There was one thing she still didn't understand.

'So, Stefan is going to warn the others of Klaus and Katherine's plans?' she asked.

'Um, basically, yeah.' Elena flashed back to when Stefan had tried to explain it to her. If Klaus managed to kill the other Old Ones, he would then have more power than it was safe for one vampire to possess, and it seemed that Klaus had some rather unorthodox views about vampirism. Rather than existing alongside the human world, in the shadows, as was the way taught by the Old Ones, Klaus had visions for a world run by vampires, where humans were for kept in fear and used only as food or for pleasure. No-one, vampires included, wanted to live in a world ruled by Klaus, with Katherine Pearce as his dark queen.

Stefan needed to right the wrongs he saw himself and Damon as causing, by inadvertently reuniting Katherine and Klaus with the one object of power they needed to act out their little apocalypse. He had to make sure Klaus, and Katherine, did not survive to make their sick visions a reality. And if the Old Ones did strike down Klaus and all those who followed his cause, Stefan hoped his early show of allegiance would save the Salvatore brothers from otherwise certain death, for the part they had recklessly played in this whole debacle.

'Stefan didn't precisely spell it out to me,' Elena finished, 'but I get the impression if the Old Ones are gunning for you they are pretty ruthless in destroying you and everyone you care about.' Elena knew it was that last part that meant Stefan would not be coming back from Europe until he had made things right. She did not say it to Bonnie, but Elena knew from Stefan's fear and even Damon's over- protectiveness, that she would definitely be included in that party, if only because of her apparent connection to Katherine. Elena was deeply worried that Bonnie might make the guest list too, since she was the only surviving witch who opened the tomb, and the descendant Emily Bennett, who had played such a critical role in the royal mess.

'And Damon can't do this because?' Bonnie queried. 'I mean, why does Stefan have to go, when he has you here in Mystic Falls?'

Elena snorted.

'Bonnie, can you really see Damon as a diplomat?' she laughed. 'Plus,' she continued more soberly, 'Stefan says the Old Ones are really powerful and can see into a person's mind and heart. Stefan's intentions are pure, but Damon? Even I don't know how Damon feels about Katherine, even after everything that has happened. The Old Ones would see in a minute that Damon's feelings about her are too raw, too unreliable. They might think Damon would be a risk. If they were unsure of where his loyalties lie or saw a possibility of him re-allying himself with Katherine, they would kill him. Then they would come after Stefan, too.' Elena shivered as the horrifying thought appeared in her mind. She could not bear to lose either of them now.

Elena and Bonnie stood side by side at the edge of the terrace, quiet in the midst of their fellow partygoers. At length, Bonnie frowned at a mossy stone statute sitting atop one of the balcony walls, a few metres in front of them. Rather, she frowned at what was perched on the top of it.

'Is that the same crow we saw when we left my house earlier? What, is it stalking you or something?'

Elena huffed in surprise, and tilted her head thoughtfully at the huge black bird, which was gazing intently at her.

'Looks like,' she answered, lightly, and with a wicked sparkle in her eyes grabbed a clump of moss from the wall and lobbed it at the crow.

'Elena? What's got into you?' Bonnie laughed, as the crow cawed in displeasure and took off into the dark night sky.

'Nothing,' Elena assured her friend. 'It's between me and the crow.' Bonnie looked at her strangely, and Elena giggled. 'Shall we go back inside?'

'Sure. You're still coming to Caroline's after-party, right?'

'Hey, where you go, I go, amigo.'

Bonnie smiled at Elena, as they linked arms to go back into the dance.

'For the record, I like cheery-Elena,' Bonnie told her friend. 'I know you're bummed that Stefan has gone away, but honestly you've seemed a bit more like your normal self these past few weeks. A bit more relaxed. Which is all that I, as your best friend, ask.'

Well, it really would not do to dwell on that. Brushing any pangs of guilt, or lush thoughts of vampire brothers, firmly to one side, Elena gathered up her dress and refocused her mind on the prizes; fun, frolic and frivolity. Sometimes, Caroline was a brilliant role-model.

The Salvatore boarding house was like something from a horror movie in the dead of night. As beautiful an old house as it was, situated on the outskirts of town with no neighbours closer than a mile away, the fresh air carried only an eerie silence and a sense of all-encompassing darkness. Approaching the front doors at nearly 3am, Elena thought she should feel like prime slasher-flick fodder. She was really tired, and a little tipsy. Yet she had surprised even herself by asking the taxi to bring her here, when she left Caroline's party, because the Salvatore house was somewhere she actually felt safe. Basically, Elena thought slightly hysterically, it meant that she felt more comforted in a vampire's lair than in the house where she lived with her aunt and brother. This was a place she was safe. It was Stefan's house. It was _Damon's _house.

Actually, she thought, noting the absence of a particular flashy sports car from the driveway, Damon might not be here. Whereas Stefan went to school, spent time with her and kept generally human-like hours, Damon was a whole other story. Elena knew that he did sleep sometimes, but she had no idea if he actually needed to, or how much. Despite his sunlight-friendly ring, Damon fully embraced the creature of the night routine. He probably would not be back for hours.

The heavy old-fashioned doorbell clanged loudly in the silent night, but no-one came to answer it. Tentatively, Elena tried the front door, but it would not budge. She ran a hand through her curls, which had all pulled loose and fallen, wild and unruly, around her face, as she considered her options. Try to get the cab back and go home, or…

The Salvatore's security was pretty lax, Elena decided, once she was stood inside the old kitchen. The old wooden door off the herb garden round the back was easy enough to break into, by leveraging the heel of her pump against the old lock and applying her whole body weight until the catch pulled free. Shoes in hand, she stood on the cold flagstones of the shadowy kitchen, and shivered. Probably nobody had used that kitchen door since Zak had died. Or, more accurately, had been killed. By Damon. The vampire whose house she had just broken into at some ungodly hour of the night and was now creeping around in the dark. Oh yeah, great idea. She almost turned around to go back outside again, but something stopped her. This evening had made Elena feel lonelier than ever, and she really did not want to be by herself tonight.

After her eyes had adjusted to the gloom, Elena made her way through the ground floor of the boarding house to the familiar main hall, which served as the cavernous living room. From there, she practically tripped up the stairs to Stefan's bedroom and stopped, just inside the threshold, dropping her shoes on the floor beside her. Wishing she had a vampire's sense of smell, Elena breathed deeply. The old furniture and neatly stored antique artefacts gave the room a faintly musty smell, but there was also _Stefan_. Elena's dress swished across the floorboards as she wandered the circumference of the floor, trailing her fingertips along the books and personal items that Stefan had left out on the surfaces. Right now, she desperately wanted to call Stefan, just to hear his voice. But they had all agreed it would be best to wait for Stefan to call her and Damon, when it was safe for him to do so. She was only supposed to call him in a real emergency. Stefan had been calling every few days, and she had only spoken to him yesterday afternoon. Elena knew she would just have to be patient, but the thought of it made her fidgety.

Suddenly overcome with emotion that flooded her whole body out of nowhere, Elena fought back angry tears behind her eyes. This whole thing was so unfair. Frustration swelled in her chest, and Elena felt herself straining against the tight bodice of her dress. Irritated, she tugged at the fastenings, ripping at them harder than she should, until she could wrestle the dress down to a ragged heap at her feet. Stepping out of the pile of satin and petticoats, she picked it up and threw it to the far side of the room, where it landed annoyingly delicately by an oak dresser. Elena reached for Stefan's school football jersey, which lay across his chair, and tugged it over her head. It was scratchier against her bare skin than the satin had been, and it hung nearly to her knees, but it made her feel closer to Stefan than she had all night. Bonnie had been right: why should Stefan have to go away and sort Damon's mess out? After all, if it had not been for Damon's relentless pursuit of Katherine, to the utter destruction of everything in his path, none of this would have happened, and Stefan would still be here with her.

In an act of stupidity that, looking back on it afterwards, Elena could only attribute to a combination of the beer she had drunk at Caroline's and the emotional meltdown she was having, Elena padded barefoot out of Stefan's room and down the hall. At the other end of the second storey was a room she had never been in before, but emboldened by anger and righteousness, without any sense of what she planned to do, Elena pushed open the heavy wooden door and flicked on the light.

Damon's bedroom was shockingly ordinary for a creature of the night. Elena didn't know if she had expected there to be goblets of virgin's blood or black leather furniture, but as far as she could tell there was neither. The room was basically like Stefan's, except less a few dusty tomes and plus a few fast car magazines. The huge bed was made up with dark grey patterned sheets and a charcoal throw, some clothes were strewn about and a leather jacket was slung over the desk chair. A few bottles of Givenchy and Paco Rabanne aftershave stood on the nearest surface outside the en suite bathroom door, and when she peered round the corner of that Elena saw a myriad of other mens beauty products stacked on the white marbled counter top. It was all so ridiculously normal.

On the armoire next to Damon's bed was a half drunk bottle of whiskey, and Elena idly toyed with the lid before taking a swig. It was disgusting and she grimaced, leaving the bottle on the side as she sunk down onto the bed. After a moment she lay back, across the width of the covers and stared up at the ceiling. She couldn't blame everything on Damon, not when his bedroom had the same Ikea laundry basket in the corner that Jeremy had at home. Damon wasn't just a vampire, he was a person, and she couldn't blame him for falling so in love with Katherine that he had been a hundred years worth of idiot. After all, it was really incredibly romantic to be so passionate about a person that you would do anything to get them back. For the millionth time, Elena cursed her face for being Katherine's, which must bring so much pain to Damon on a daily basis, no matter how much he may protest otherwise. After everything, Damon was still her friend. He would still protect her.

It was so quiet, and the drunken dizziness of the past hour was fading into a pleasant, heavy numbness. Elena let her eyes close just for a moment. She was so comfortable, and if she could just snuggle a little further into these soft covers, it would be perfect. She could rest, just for a moment. The she would go and sleep in Stefan's bed. In one minute. Just one minute.

'Oh, my God!' shrilled a high pitched voice, startling Elena into consciousness. How long had she been asleep? The last thing she remembered was lying down for a minute on… Oh, no. Panic raced through her mind. Elena opened her eyes, searching for the owner of the very feminine, very _not_ Damon, voice.

Elena cringed. Horrifically, Damon _was_ there, standing in the doorway to his bedroom, with a strange look on his face that was half surprise and half calculated interest. Worse still, if it was not his voice she had heard, then that would mean… Ah, yes. The curvy redhead clinging to his elbow, pink cheeked and round eyed, already halfway out of her monochrome mini-dress, was the one who had spoken.

The redhead turned to Damon accusingly.

'What the hell, Damon? Who is this? Is she your girlfriend, asshole?'

Well, fuck.

_**TBC**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Overprotective**

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show.

**A/N: Okay guys, I promised I wouldn't leave you too long with that evil cliffhanger (mwahaha!) et, voila! This is a bit of a short chappie but it seemed a logical place to end the scene. More is on its way very shortly. Thanks so much for the reviews peeps, they really inspire me to keep going. As many, many of you will know, it can be a hard slog finding the right direction and keeping the concentration, even when you adore the subject matter as much as I love Delena! So, all reviews are totally adored and you guys keep me writing. (Wow, slushy.) :-))**

**So, this is what you wanted, right? --- **

**Part 4**

_'Oh, my God!' shrilled a high pitched voice, startling Elena into consciousness. How long had she been asleep? The last thing she remembered was lying down for a minute on… Oh, no. Panic raced through her mind. Elena opened her eyes, searching for the owner of the very feminine, very __not__ Damon, voice._

_Elena cringed. Horrifically, Damon __was__ there, standing in the doorway to his bedroom, with a strange look on his face that was half surprise and half calculated interest. Worse still, if it was not his voice she had heard, then that would mean… Ah, yes. The curvy redhead clinging to his elbow, pink cheeked and round eyed, already halfway out of her monochrome mini-dress, was the one who had spoken._

_The redhead turned to Damon accusingly._

_'What the hell, Damon? Who is this? Is she your girlfriend, asshole?'_

_Well, fuck._

Damon must have had some bad blood or something, because he could not be seeing what he thought he was seeing. What he thought he was seeing was Elena Gilbert, dressed in nothing but a football jersey and smeared eye-makeup, asleep in his bed. How the hell had she even got into the house?

Elena was mortified. There really was no good way to explain this, was there? Desperately she cast around for a bright spark of an excuse that would make her seem even slightly less like a crazy-trespassing-stalker-girl. Nothing. Where was Jeremy and his amazing ability to talk his way out of anything when you needed him? She wasn't sure if Damon was angry or amused by the situation, but she was perfectly sure neither was a good thing.

And, good Lord, her head hurt.

To make things worse, after her earlier little temper tantrum which left her messy and mostly undressed, the last thing Elena needed was some gorgeous redhead, perfectly groomed and practically pouring out of a micro-mini, all over Damon. The girl was gorgeous; petite, shaped like an hourglass and with massive green eyes. Elena could see tiny, red puncture marks on the girl's bare shoulder, where Damon had already been snacking. That would mean he had probably brought her home, and into his bedroom, for more than just a quick bite.

Oh, God. Elena realised she could put a name to that nasty stabbing feeling in her chest. It was jealousy. She was actually jealous of Damon's date. What _was_ that? She felt sick.

No, really. Her stomach lurched in more than a figurative way and, with no time to be embarrassed, Elena dove for the en-suite bathroom she had snooped in earlier that night.

After throwing up in Damon's bathroom (which had a nice sort of karmic justice to it) Elena rinsed her mouth and then hesitated, not wanting to step back into the room. She could hear Redhead twittering on at Damon, apparently still unconvinced he was not a philandering pig. Well, Elena had to give the girl credit, she had the second part right.

'Oh, do be quiet,' Damon was growling, sounding mildly irritated. 'I've already told you. Elena is not my girlfriend. I'm not a _girlfriend _kind of guy. Elena's dating my brother. I do not know why she was asleep on my bed. Although,' he shot a pointed glance at the door Elena was cowering behind, 'I'm just itching to find out.'

'Really?' Redhead chirped, sarcastically. 'What kind of girl waits half naked in her boyfriend's brother's bed?'

Good question. Elena's cheeks flamed again, and she slid down onto the cool tile floor, leaning her head back against the wall. What the hell had she been thinking?

'Enough!' Damon snapped, loudly, startling Elena with the intensity of his voice. Redhead gave a small squeak, and lapsed into silence. 'Wow, you are getting irritating.' Elena heard Damon's voice change into that silky, calming tone he used to compel people, and she could imagine him gripping the girl's face and staring deep into her eyes. 'Okay Kelly, listen up. It's time for you to go home now. We had a really swell time this evening, and you came back to my house for wild monkey sex and, by the way, I totally rocked your world. Then you decided to call a taxi to take you home, because it's late and you are very tired. You didn't see anyone else here apart from me.' There was a brief pause, then a sound like Damon snapping his fingers. 'Oh, and that thing where I drank your blood never happened.'

There was a pause, and then Redhead- Kelly- said, in a relaxed voice:

'You know what Damon? It's been a great night and this was… amazing, but I'm pretty tired. You won't be offended if I call a cab will you?'

'If that's what you want, baby,' came the deep murmured response, and Elena shuddered. She was fairly sure she could hear Kelly trying to swallow Damon's face in the minute of awkward almost-silence that followed.

As soon as she was sure Kelly had gone downstairs to call her cab, Elena pulled herself up and flicked open the bathroom door, only to walk straight into Damon. The vampire grabbed her shoulders and looked firmly at her. He tilted his head quizzically.

'Hmmm. What am I going to do with you?'

'Let me go,' Elena muttered, putting up a poor effort to free herself.

'Right. Only, correct me if I'm wrong, angel face, but you're the one sneaking into my house and climbing into my bed in the middle of the night.'

'It wasn't like that,' Elena said, defensively.

'Oh?' Damon raised an eyebrow. 'Interesting. Enlighten me.'

'I was… I was at Caroline's party,' Elena began, avoiding eye contact with the very awake and very beautiful man refusing to let go of her. 'I was having a night of being 'fun-Elena' again. Maybe I had too much to drink. I didn't want to go home and be alone. I just thought, if I could be in Stefan's room, with his stuff, I don't know, maybe I wouldn't feel so…' Elena trailed off, when Damon's fingers dug into her and she felt him tense. Flicking her gaze to his face, she saw his eyes had darkened. 'Damon,' she almost whispered, 'you're hurting me.'

Instantly, Elena was released, and she stumbled back a couple of steps, rubbing at her arms.

'Fine,' Damon said, but his voice was clipped. He tilted his head slightly, as if he was listening to something from downstairs. Then he crossed the room and opened a large oak chest. From it, he produced a large, white towel, and practically threw it at Elena. 'Go and have a shower. Sober up. Get over your _Shontelle_ moment.'

Elena blinked at him in disbelief.

'Damon, no, I'll go. You were obviously… busy.' She could not quite bring herself to say Kelly's name, much less outright suggest that Damon stop the perky bitch from leaving.

Damon stared unnervingly at Elena for a long moment, and then proceeded as if she had not spoken.

'I'll be back in a few minutes,' was all he said, before he disappeared from the room.

Elena looked down at the towel in her hand. She felt a little better after her sleep and being sick, but a shower did sound really good. She felt unclean and she was fairly sure the smell of beer clung to her actual skin.

The warm spray on her face felt amazing and Elena helped herself to the shower gel on the metal rack at her eye-level. Being immersed in part of Damon's scent suddenly gave Elena a sensory flashback to earlier in the week, when he had held her close in his arms while they danced. It had been a million times more enjoyable, not to mention more sensual, than any dance she had shared with a boy this evening.

'Non-vomitty clothes,' Damon's voice interrupted her fantasy, definitely from inside the bathroom area. Elena froze, squeaked something that could have been 'thank you' or could have been 'get the hell out' and hoped the lingering alcohol buzz was responsible for the fact that she was not more concerned to know if the glass door at her back was steamed up enough to protect her modesty. She was simultaneously relieved and slightly disappointed when Damon left the bathroom straight away.

Damon's version of clothes turned out to be a designer label plain black V necked t-shirt (and Elena never quite understood the concept of those) and a pair of guy's drawstring jogging bottoms. They smelled of washing powder and faintly of his bedroom, when she pressed her face into the clean fabric. The t-shirt was obviously one of those fitted ones Damon wore that, surely by intentional design, always pulled mouth-wateringly tight over his chest and stomach when he stretched. Elena doubted Damon owned any other kind. It was kind of baggy on her skinny frame, although it fit snugly enough over her breasts. The joggers just about stayed up on her hips when she knotted the drawstring tightly and she turned the long legs up a few times to create three-quarter lengths.

She used the open tube of toothpaste on the counter with the new toothbrush Damon had shoved on top of the clothing, feeling a mixture of grateful and suspicious at how nice he was being.

Damon was lounging in an armchair, his feet propped up on a beanbag and flicking through a magazine when Elena emerged from the bathroom.

'Sqeaky clean?' he smirked, glancing up at her. 'Oh, wow, those look far better on me.'

Elena pulled a childish rude face at him.

'I'm amazed you have these. You jog?'

'Not a chance. My butt looks sensational in them though.'

'I'm… going to ignore that.'

'Oh, please, like you haven't noticed.' Damon slung the magazine onto a table and leaned back, studying the awkward way Elena was hovering in the middle of the room. 'So, Little Miss Break-And-Enter, have a seat. We need to have a little chat, wouldn't you say?'

Elena gave him a pained look.

'Any chance we could… not?' At Damon's unchanged expression, she sighed and shuffled over to the chair farthest from his own. 'Okay, let's have it. Blah, blah, blah…I've overstepped the boundaries, this is your private space… I totally ruined your, er, date or whatever with Redhead, ah, I mean Kelly-'

Damon listened to her incessant rambling for a moment before growing bored and interrupting.

'Yes, all of that. It's totally hot, though.'

Elena's head snapped up, alcohol-hazed eyes wide and blinking.

'Excuse me?'

'It's been a while since I've literally had a girl break down a door to be close to me,' he said. The corner of his lip twitched in amusement as Elena spluttered her denials.

'I told you, I was-'

'Ah, yes, I forgot. You broke in to sniff Stefan's panty drawer.'

'Oh, that is gross, Damon-'

'You're telling me,' Damon agreed.

Elena threw her hands up in frustration.

'What do you want me to say, Damon?' His eyes narrowed in amusement and Elena crossed her arms. 'And I did not break down a door- the kitchen door lock was loose anyway.'

Damon laughed out loud at her lame denial. After a moment, Elena's defiant gaze softened, and a wry smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Of course, the moment her guard was down Damon made use of the opportunity to literally knock her off her feet. With super-human speed that made the nausea threaten to resurface, Damon was in front of her, had her in his arms, and moved to the bed in the barest of flashes. When Elena's brain orientated itself, she was straddling Damon on the covers of his bed. He gripped her hands, which were rested on his chest and, Lord, Elena could feel the hard muscles of that chest far too distinctly. She concentrated on resisting the impulse to open her palms against his body and feel the hard lines of his pectorals beneath his t-shirt.

'Hey, you _are_ fun-Elena tonight!' Damon teased, as Elena squirmed uncomfortably on top of him. If Elena didn't move soon, she was worried one or more of them might be having a bit too much like real fun, and she wasn't sure which of them having that reaction would be more embarrassing. Parts of her were pressed altogether too close to parts of him right now, and it felt soooo… no, bad, _bad, bad_. 'Earth to Elena,' Damon said, shifting his head experimentally from side to side in an attempt to catch her eye.

'Let me off,' Elena growled.

'Why?' Damon was all snide smiles and predatory eyes. 'I mean, you totally cock-blocked me with Kelly,' he mock berated. 'Don't you think I deserve a… _heartfelt_ apology?' He looked up into hazel-coffee eyes and what he saw made the vampire inside growl to be released. Damon had only meant to tease, but the way Elena's eyes were darkening, and the unmistakeable quickening of her heart beat had him smug as the cat that got the cream. As Elena wriggled against his restraining hands, he released her with some disappointment.

'So,' he mused, as she rolled onto the bed next to him, so they were both looking up at the ceiling. 'You really didn't come here to take advantage of all the dirtybadwrong things you know I can do to make your body scream with pleasure?'

Elena groaned. 'No, Damon, I didn't. And, God, do you have to say things like that?'

Damon turned and propped himself up on one side on his elbow.

'No, but you like it when I do.'

'I like it when you shut up,' she mumbled, wearily.

Damon obliged for a few moments, and when he turned back to Elena, some cocky remark already half formed on his lips, he realised the human girl was already fast asleep. Her wet hair was probably totally ruining his Egyptian cotton pillow cases, Damon thought idly, as he stroked one finger gently across Elena's cheek. He watched her chest rise and fall as she breathed, and wondered how, for such an annoying, frustrating girl, she could look so totally pure and angelic as she slept. Damon's delicate fingertips traced the path down Elena's throat and dipped down to touch the vervain charm that rested above the curve of her breasts. Maybe, _he_ was the one that needed a protective charm, Damon thought. He wasn't sure what it was about Elena Gilbert, but it felt very much like history was repeating itself where the Salvatore brothers were concerned. It was at once the best and the worst feeling Damon had known in over one hundred years.

'_Alone_ has been working for me for the past century and a half,' Damon reminded himself, under his breath, as he spread the throw blanket over Elena's sleeping form and settled back down beside her, arms behind his head. She could stay tonight, but he had no intention of becoming the Pacey to her Joey, George to her Izzy, or any kind of sidelined secondary romantic character that he absolutely had never watched and would not know the name of. He was Damon Salvatore, for the love of all that was unholy: he was a freakin' vampire. First thing tomorrow, he was kicking the girl out. Protecting Elena from vampires and bodily harm was one thing, but he was not here to protect her from loneliness or fucking PMS. Damn it, he was pretty sure he'd made that clear with the whole 'not a supernatural babysitter' thing.

In her sleep, Elena turned and rolled so that head was tucked against the warmth of his chest.

First thing tomorrow, Damon swore, as he tilted his head to smell her hair.

TBC

_Please review and I will love you long time! I'll also be full of joy and inspiration to get th next chapter finished quickly (ch 7 is written but ch 6 is giving me attitude. It's that naughty Damon refusing to behave. ). Thanks for reading :-))_


	6. Chapter 6

**Overprotective**

_Disclaimer: I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show._

**Part 6**

'Morning, Sunshine.'

'Mrrrghhh,' came the muffled response from the face buried in Damon's pillow.

'Yeah.' Damon gave an over exaggerated sigh and nudged the bed with his foot. 'That's what I thought.'

Elena lifted her face out of the pillow and struggled to turn over and look at him through the tangles of a serious case of bed-head. Her usually sharp brown eyes were sleepy and confused.

'Damon?'

'Aaaand… welcome back,' Damon quipped. He was stood next to the bed, dressed in jeans and a dark t-shirt, barefoot and bright eyed. Winking at her, he suddenly zipped at vampire speed to the window and tugged open the curtains, letting milky morning light flood into the room.

'Ugh, don't do that,' Elena groaned, shutting her eyes and letting her head fall back onto the pillow. 'No blurry super-speedy movements, please. It makes me all dizzy.' Her head was pounding and although she hadn't tried to actually get out of bed yet, she felt that any sudden movement was not a good idea. Damon chuckled at the pathetic sight she made, but Elena could not muster enough energy to berate him for it. After all, he had let her sabotage his bootycall and fall asleep on his bed.

'It's been a while since I've had to deal with a human hangover,' Damon was saying, 'but I believe the tried and tested method is narcotics and lots of water.' He motioned to the bedside table by Elena's head, where a two litre bottle of spring water, a glass tumbler and a packet of painkillers were stood. Elena propped herself up on her elbows and raised an eyebrow at Damon. 'What?' He sighed heavily. 'When will you learn Elena, that I'm really a nice guy.' Damon's lips pursed into a over-exaggerated sad pout. 'I'm just so misunderstood. Plus, I do have an enhanced vamp sense of smell. If you give a repeat performance of last night's little barf-o-rama, in my bed, I'll probably have to burn the room down to get the stink out.'

'You are such an ass-hat,' Elena griped, but Damon could tell her heart wasn't really in it.

'And you, my dear, are a de_light_ful morning person.'

Elena harrumphed and reached tentatively for the glass of water. As she sipped, she was acutely aware of Damon's unwavering eyes watching her intently. Gulping, Elena sneaked a glance down at herself to check that she was properly covered, and then tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear self-consciously. She was fairly sure the shower last night had put paid to any chance of embarrassing makeup smeared panda eyes, but she guessed Bonnie's curling tong attack didn't make for a pretty morning after look. Her hair probably looked like she'd been dragged through a hedge backwards.

'What is it?' she asked, suspiciously. It wasn't like she cared what Damon thought of her, exactly; it certainly wasn't like he was her boyfriend or anything. Still, he was always so immaculately groomed and... kind of beautiful. Right now, he was staring at her with a slightly distracted look on his face, and Elena just couldn't tell where his thoughts were. Somewhere mocking, no doubt. 'Do I have drool on my face or something?'

Damon shook his head and the corner of his mouth twitched in amusement.

'Then what?' Elena demanded, as she arose somewhat jerkily from the bed.

With exaggerated slow-motion, hands held up in front of him in mock-surrender, Damon moved closer to Elena and took her hand. Despite her hangover, Elena felt her body respond as it always did to Damon's closeness. That half fear, half excitement rush that set her pulse racing and skin tingling. She liked the feeling of his hand in hers more than she cared to admit. With a leery grin, Damon tugged her around to stand in front of his free standing full length mirror. Elena looked at her reflection, slightly pleased to find that her mussed up post-party hair was actually pretty sexy looking. It was strange to see Damon's clothes wrapped around her slender frame, but, overall, Elena wasn't uncomfortable with her appearance.

'See?' Damon murmured, in a gravelly voice, over her shoulder. He had moved in behind her so closely that she could practically feel the warmth of his body at her back. 'No drool, Elena. Just a stunningly attractive girl waking up in my bed. Allow a guy to have a distracted moment.'

Elena gaped, completely taken aback at Damon's compliment. She couldn't ever remember him saying anything nice to her without some double meaning or innuendo. Even now, she was deeply suspicious of what his ulterior motive might be. Plus... well, it was kind of hot the way he said that.

'You know, before your oh-so-enjoyable interruption last night, I was planning on having breakfast in bed this morning.' Damon's suggestive leer only grew at Elena's withering stare, as an unwelcome image of him and Redhead indulging in some early morning delight, in which more than one bodily fluid was exchanged, burned the back of Elena's retinas. Elena shivered at Damon's breath in her ear as he whispered, 'You want to make it up to me?'

This was bad, Elena decided. Very, very bad. With Damon, there was always a certain amount of flirting involved. It was an ingrained part of his personality. But she was starting to realise that there was such a thing as playing with fire, and maybe co-ed sleepovers were treading a dangerous line, no matter how drunk or lonely she was. After all, she should only be sleeping in the bed of one Salvatore brother, and this was definitely the wrong one.

Either oblivious to or unconcerned by her inner turmoil, Damon trailed one fiery finger down the side of her neck. Elena followed with her eyes in the mirror, and was about to make a concerted effort to dump some verbal ice on the situation when she noticed the angry red mark on her neck, that had been hiding under her hair. Immediately, her body tensed. Was that...? It couldn't be. She realised that the mark stung a little, now she knew it was there. Elena's mind raced. What had happened last night? Her hand groped for her vervain pendant, and she was relieved to find it in place. She remembered lying next to Damon on the bed, dozing off and then... nothing until she woke up this morning.

Elena's panicked eyes flicked to meet Damon's in the mirror, and his gaze narrowed as he felt her tension and the change in her energy. Elena couldn't help but glance once again at the terrifying mark and feel a surge of anger build within. Had Damon really taken advantage of her like that?

Damon followed her gaze and then snickered as he realised with relief what had got her all riled up.

'Whoa, there,' he started, hastily. 'No, no, no. Not what you're thinking. Not guilty.' He held his hands up for the second time that morning. 'That's not a bite mark.'

Elena glowered at him and moved closer to the mirror to try and get a better look.

'It better not be,' she threatened.

'Honey, if I had... you'd know about it.' Elena could have punched him in the face for his smug tone.

'Oh yeah? Like Kelly knows about it?'

Something shifted in Damon's eyes and his next words were spoken in a tone tinged with cold anger.

'That's different. Kelly is nothing to me.' Seeing Elena's worry, he rolled his eyes and tilted the mirror so she could see her neck clearly. 'Look. The skin isn't even broken. It's not a bite. And not to get all graphic or anything, but the mark is too small and there's no bruising.'

'I remember, I saw the state of Caroline afterwards,' Elena jibed, refusing to be talked down until she was sure.

Damon was right, though. Elena could clearly see that the blemish was just a round, red mark, like something had rubbed too hard against the skin, or... Oh. Elena flushed, remembering now that Tyler had been playing that stupid hot spoons drinking game with the boys at Caroline's party, and Matt had got mad when Tyler's drunken misjudgement pressed one of the spoons against Elena's neck as he tripped past her. It hadn't really hurt at the time, probably due to Elena being quite drunk at that stage, but obviously the skin was a little sore this morning.

Elena let out a breath she had not known she was holding.

'Sorry,' she said to Damon, but when she looked up she was alone in the room.

By the time Elena had gathered the belongings she had discarded the previous night, shoved them into a paper carrier bag she found in Stefan's room and brushed her teeth again, Damon had still not reappeared. Her dress, now rescued from the corner of Stefan's room, wouldn't fit in the bag, so she settled for carrying it over her arm. Sighing, Elena realised the only pair of shoes she had with her were the heeled pumps she had worn to the dance, and they would look pretty stupid with the jogging bottoms and t-shirt Damon had lent her. Barefoot and in men's clothes, Elena didn't think she could even face calling a cab to take her home.

Elena wandered downstairs through the silent old house, and paused in the entrance hall. Although she was starving, she highly doubted there was anything edible in the entire house, and was even less sure that Damon would want her to be here any longer than she had to be. There was nothing for it, she was going to have to call someone to come and get pick her up. The million dollar question was, who? Aunt Jenna was out of the question, and Bonnie would have some serious questions about what Elena was doing at Damon's. Matt would probably come, but she wasn't sure if she could stand the judgement that would be in his eyes. Ironically, Elena had to admit this was one time she wished Jeremy was old enough to drive.

Cell phone in hand, but still undecided, Elena pulled open the heavy front door and stepped into the brightening morning light. The milky sunshine was pleasantly warm on her face, but didn't do her headache any favours, and she wished she had her sunglasses almost more than she wanted shoes.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when Damon materialised in front of her. His whole face exuded moodiness reminiscent of the time she had confronted him after the whole mess at his father's grave site, and done her best to convince him he could trust her. Elena had no idea why she of all people managed to so frequently discover, let alone hurt, the feelings of such a patently irreverent and hedonistic vampire. Maybe the 'Katherine' factor played into it, but Elena couldn't shake the feeling that whatever _connection_ she and Damon had was only deepening the more time they spent together.

Damon's pale eyes locked onto Elena and bore right into some secret place inside her.

'Damon, I'm sorry,' Elena said, quietly and seriously. 'I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. It was actually really... kind of you to let me crash last night, especially since you obviously were already otherwise engaged.' She smiled wryly, but it faded when Damon's expression remained unchanged. 'Oookay. Well, like I said, I'm really sorry. I'm gonna go now.'

Elena walked past Damon, only to find he had done that annoying vampire speed thing and was right in front of her again. His face scrunched up in that cute way Elena now connected with Damon actually emoting.

'I thought you would know that I would never take advantage of you like that. I'd never do anything to hurt you,' Damon said. God, his voice was like melted chocolate.

'I know. You promised Stefan-'

Damon's eyes flashed in annoyance as he interrupted her.

'No, not because of Stefan. Just... You were right when you said there is something between us. You told me I could trust you, but you can't do the same for me, can you?'

'I...' Elena thought about saying what he wanted to hear, but surprised herself by realising she didn't want to lie to Damon. 'I want to trust you, Damon. It's not so easy for me, after everything that's happened. I believe you when you say you'd never hurt me and, this morning, thinking you'd bitten me in my sleep: I know that's plain crazy. I'm trying. I'm trying to be your friend. And the trust thing? I think if it's real it's got to come with time.'

Damon seemed to consider this. Elena could practically see it rolling around in his brain as he cricked his neck and ran a hand through his already dishevelled mop of hair. Whatever this relationship was that Elena was developing with Damon, it was like navigating a minefield. Neither of them seemed very good at it, so far. Maybe, Elena thought with a pang, it was because vampires and humans aren't supposed to be friends. Maybe she should have headed for the hills the second Stefan told her the Salvatore's big secret.

'Alright then, _friend_,' Damon said, finally. 'I guess we're doing okay for now, all things considered.' He smirked at her shoeless feet on the cool ground and whipped his car key from his jacket pocket. 'Come on, I'll give you a ride home.'

Elena smiled gratefully.

'Yeah?'

'Yeah. Have you seen the state of you? That would be one serious walk of shame.'

'Shut up. You said I was, wait, what was it? A stunningly beautiful girl.'

'I said stunningly _attractive_. Don't give yourself an upgrade.'

'And I'm pretty sure you snuggled me at some point last night.'

'Okay, now I _am_ going to have to kill you.'

Elena's phone ringing effectively cut off any reply she might have made, and she groaned when she saw Aunt Jenna's name flashing on the caller display.

'Sssh,' she warned Damon, before answering her guardian. 'Hi, Aunt Jenna. I'm on my way home now…' Elena trailed off as she realised Jenna was not remotely concerned with double-checking where Elena had spent the night. After a minute of quite 'uh-huh's' and 'of course's', Elena promised to see her Aunt at home soon and ended the conversation. Her face was marred with concern as she turned to Damon, who was waiting patiently for her.

'Uh,' Elena shook her head, trying to clear her mind, 'Grandpa Sommers had a fall. Down the loft ladder steps in his house. He hasn't broken anything, but Aunt Jenna is going to have to stay with him this week and look after him until he's back on his feet.'

Damon's face pinched together in something resembling sympathy but he didn't look surprised. Of course, Elena realised, he would have heard the other side of the phone conversation as plainly as she did, with his vampire hearing.

'You want to go with her?'

'No,' Elena answered, quickly. 'He'd hate that. Grandpa is a fiercely independent man. It will be bad enough with Aunt Jenna fussing over him, but he would hate to have his grandchildren there as well.'

Damon nodded, as if he found something admirable in that.

'Jenna sounded flustered.'

'Yeah. She and Grandpa are really close, especially since Mom… Since the accident.' Elena squinted up through the sunlight at Damon. 'I need to get home and see Jenna before she goes.'

As Damon drove, Elena let the breeze blow her air into a bouffant of tangles; it was soothing on her achy head. 'Grandpa Sommers lives in Georgia,' she told Damon, and the mention of the word she had now come to associate with the beginning of _them_ felt precious on her lips, but Damon merely raised an interested eyebrow and returned his gaze to the road.

Aunt Jenna was a bundle of nerves by the time Damon dropped Elena off at the Gilbert house. Or technically, half a road down from the house, so that Elena didn't have to dodge the barrage of questions Damon's presence would lead to.

'I'm so sorry to do this to you, Elena,' Jenna was saying, as she threw various garments from her wardrobe into the open packing case on her bed. 'Will you be alright here for the rest of the week by yourself? You know you can come to Georgia with me if you want. But you've got school, and I don't want you to fall behind…'

'It's fine,' Elena assured her. 'I'm seventeen- that's quite old enough to manage for a week.'

Jenna stopped what she was doing and came to stand in front of her niece, cupping Elena's face in her hands.

'I know you can take care of yourself,' Jenna said, seriously. 'It's just, this is the first time I'll have left you and Jeremy since we've moved in together. I wonder what your Mom would think.' She bit her lip nervously. 'I hope she thinks I'm doing alright with you two.'

Elena struggled to ignore the tears she felt prickling behind her eyes; they always appeared when Jenna spoke of Elena's parents.

'You're doing great,' Elena told Jenna. 'I'm sure Mom would be more worried right now about you going as quickly as possible to look after Grandpa.'

'You're probably right.' Jenna dropped a quick kiss on Elena's forehead and returned to the messy suitcase. Elena rolled her eyes.

'How about I refold this stuff for you, and you grab the bits you need from downstairs,' she suggested.

'Thanks hon,' Jenna said. 'Hey. Your Grandpa's going to be alright you know. He just needs a little TLC and someone to imprint upon him the importance of remembering that he's seventy-five now, not twenty-five.'

'I know.'

'Well, okay. It's just, Jeremy took it pretty badly when I told him earlier.'

'Yeah,' Elena said, heavily. 'He's just afraid of losing anyone else that he loves.' For the hundredth time, Elena thanked the stars that Damon had been around to erase Jeremy's painful memories of what happened to Vicki earlier in the year. There was only so much heartache you could expect a fifteen year old boy to withstand. And whatever had gone on between her brother and Vicki, Elena was strangely sure that Jeremy had loved the girl.

Aunt Jenna sighed, her pretty grey eyes full of pain that the whole Gilbert family felt, and Elena forced a cheery smile.

'Go,' she urged Jenna. 'Grandpa needs you, and we'll be fine.'

'Good.' Jenna whirled round at the bedroom doorway. 'Oh, Jeremy will be staying at his friend Joel's house. I spoke to Mrs Harris and she's happy to have Jeremy there until I get back. At least that way I'll know he's getting to school and you don't have to worry about chasing him around town to make sure he's home in the evenings. I guess you'll probably stay with Bonnie or Caroline? Or have them stay over here with you. I don't want you to be lonely, El.'

Elena chuckled.

'I'll sort something out. You worry too much.'

'And you need to throw yourself back into life. Especially since Stefan's travelling abroad. You can't just sit here and wait for him to get back.'

'Yes, I think you've made your views on that very clear, Aunt Jenna,' Elena groaned.

'Well, why Stefan thought it was a good idea to go in the middle of the school year I do not know. I wonder what his uncle was thinking taking him off like that. That creep of a headmaster of yours nearly chews my ear off if Jeremy so much as hands in a homework assignment late!'

Half an hour later, Aunt Jenna had set off ifor Georgia in her car and Elena was left in blissful peace.

Naturally, that was the moment that Stefan chose to call, but Elena was glad to talk to him. For the time they spoke, she could pretend everything was normal and disregard the creeping feeling that things were getting more complicated by the day. Although she couldn't exactly put a label on her feelings for Damon, Elena could not deny that there was some kind of spark between them, and it felt somehow too important to ignore. Stefan was the first boy she had ever loved and Elena knew he was a good man; too good to cheat on or treat disrespectfully. But Damon…

Damon was something else entirely and it didn't conflict with what she had with Stefan: it was a thing entirely separate. He somehow managed to touch a part of Elena that she thought had died when her parent's car went off that bridge. Stefan had saved her life that day, but it was as if Elena had never really broken the surface of the water until these past few weeks with Damon. She didn't have a clue what Damon thought about the connection between them, or what it meant, but he had admitted only this morning that he felt it too. He made her feel _good_again. Right or wrong, Elena knew she could not tear away from what was happening between them. For the first time since her parents died, the old Elena was waking up, and all she knew was that she didn't want to go back to sleep.

**TBC**

_A/N: Hopefully I will have the next chappie up before you can say 'If I see something I haven't seen before, I'll throw I dollar at it'. Xoxo_


	7. Chapter 7

**Overprotective**

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show.

**Part 7**

After Damon dropped Elena back at her home, it was long past midnight and into the early morning hours again before he got back to the Salvatore boarding house. All day and night he hadn't been able to get Elena off his mind. She was the first person in a century to make him feel, well, human. Instead of violence, hedonistic pleasure and revenge topping his agenda, Elena filled his mind with things like that silvery giggle of hers, the feel of her sun-warmed hair under his fingers, or the simple comfort of actual friendship. Surprisingly, it wasn't as repugnant as he might have imagined.

He had planned to get her out of the house first thing this morning, but when dawn had arrived Elena had still been curled up against his chest and, as he traced a finger idly against her perfect, rosy cheek, Damon found he had no intention of letting her go. For reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with her uncanny resemblance to his former lover, in fact, perhaps in spite of that, Damon was falling hard for Elena's innocent, yet feisty, human charm. The girl made him smile, which wasn't something many people could boast.

As he pulled up in front of the house he frowned at an unfamiliar flashy orange sports convertible parked in his usual space. A raven-haired petite girl was leaning in the arch of the front porch, and Damon sighed. It would be nice to get through twelve hours at least without another head-strong woman pitching up at what was supposed to be his fortress of solitude.

'What are you doing here, Anna?' he asked coldly, as he slid from his car seat and super-speeded over to her. One of his hands was placed on the brickwork by her head, and Damon loomed close to the tiny vampire in a deliberately threatening stance. 'Don't take this the wrong way, but I thought Mystic Falls had seen the last of you.'

'Funny,' Anna replied. 'I'm surprised to see you're still here, Salvatore. Don't tell me you and Stefan are still bickering over who gets to play with the shiny new Katherine 2.0.'

The snarl that ripped from Damon's throat was positively deadly.

'Watch yourself,' he warned. Anna smirked and shrugged out from where he had her pinned against the porch wall.

'Geez, touchy much? Besides, word is you had a slight vampire spillage after Mom and I left town. Tut tut. Did someone leave the fridge door open?'

Damon hunched his shoulders in a non-committal shrug.

'Yeah, there was a slight mishap with the witches' re-sealing spell on the tomb. But if you're looking to rekindle old friendships, you've wasted a journey. The vamps that didn't feed and get their strength back quickly enough to leave town immediately met the business end of Stefan's flame-thrower pretty swiftly.' Anna's eyebrows shot up. 'Yeah,' Damon grimaced, 'what can I say? He got scarily fond of that thing. It was all a little too Van Helsing for my tastes, but you can't fault that he chose a look, _totally _worked it, really committed to it...'

'Boy always did love a righteous mission,' Anna noted. 'Aah, your dear Papa would have been proud.' Damon glared balefully at her, flashing a bit of fang as he rounded on Anna once again.

'I'll ask one more time what you're doing here…'

'I was looking for Stefan,' Anna told him.

'Then you're out of luck. He's not here.'

'I'll wait.'

'You'll be waiting a long time. Stefan's… vacationing, in Europe, for the foreseeable future.'

Anna's eyebrows shot up and then she let out a disbelieving peal of laughter.

'Stefan left town? Then the tortured cheerleader actually chose _you _over Mr Tall, Handsome and Heroic? Priceless.'

Damon definitely did not like the way Anna said that, like it was impossible that Elena could find him a better match than Stefan. Damon made her laugh and could fill her every waking minute with fun and excitement, whereas as far as Damon could see, Stefan had only brought first class angst and over-emotionally wrought drama into Elena's already depressed post-bereavement life. Sure, Damon could admit Stefan loved Elena, but Damon knew his brother and Stefan met everything in his undead life with that same level of intensity and commitment. He wasn't exactly the type for casual dating. Damon was just starting to unravel a whole other side to Elena Gilbert, a side that was totally repressed with his sober, oh-so-serious brother. Either way, he was not about to correct Anna's not-entirely-accurate assumption of the situation.

Anna's next words snapped Damon's attention back completely, all jibes and grandstanding instantly forgotten.

'Well, if you're Miss Gilbert's current knight in designer armour, I guess you're the one I'm looking for.'

'Because…?'

'Boy-o, you've got some serious vamp trouble headed right your way.'

After falling asleep on her window seat with her nose in her journal, it was nearly two in the morning by the time Elena had her skin moisturised, teeth cleaned and was clad in her cutest Yummy Sushi shortie pyjamas. She was just wondering whether she had woken herself up too much to go straight to bed now- and thinking back fondly on the time before the most important people in her life were vampires and she had some semblance of a functioning body clock that effectively separated night from day- when the doorbell rang.

The woman on the Gilbert's front porch was stunning, even in her casual outfit of slacks and this season's denim jacket. She looked about twenty-three, with a cropped pixyish shock of jet black hair, wide, heavily-lined eyes and barely olive toned skin. Her beautiful face was twisted with venom when her eyes met Elena's, making Elena sharply inhale a lungful of the crisp night air. The stranger looked at her like with a mixture of disbelief, anger and a touch of hurt pride. Elena felt vastly uncomfortable under her gaze; it was too personal, reeking of familiarity and even intimacy.

'_Ti sono mancatoa_?'

What was that? Italian? The woman was clearly waiting for some kind of response, but Elena was at a loss.

'Um, hi. Can I help you?' Elena ventured, hesitantly, staying half behind the protection of her front door.

'Hi?' the young woman sneered, raking an obviously unimpressed eye over Elena's skimpily dressed frame. 'That's all you have to say for yourself?' Her American drawl was well-practised, but still betrayed a hint of an Italian accent.

Elena frowned in confusion.

'I'm sorry, I-'

'Oh, now you're sorry,' the woman interrupted, frostily. 'How wonderful. By all means, let's kiss and make up right away.'

'Excuse me? Do I know you?' Elena gaped, fighting the urge to glace around for the hidden camera crew, or a snickering Tyler Lockwood behind the hedge.

The woman glared at her, shaking her head petulantly.

'Are you kidding me? You want to play it this way? Hair straighteners and doe eyes aren't going to cut it, sweetie. Don't forget who you're speaking to: it'll take a lot longer than two centuries before I forget your lying face, Katherine.'

Damon was grim as he raced his car through the silent outskirts of Mystic Falls, with Anna lounging in the passenger seat beside him.

'You really care about her don't you?' she asked, not really expecting an answer. Damon's pinched, worried face and angry eyes said it all: if any vampire so much as breathed on Elena Gilbert, they were biting off a lot more than they bargained for. Within moments, the convertible was out of woods, racing towards the inner streets of the town.

Anna sighed, loudly. 'Is this Francesca chick who I think she is?'

'I think so,' Damon replied, shortly. 'I never met her, but…'

'Katherine talked about her a lot,' Anna remembered, finishing Damon's sentence. 'Then, I guess Thom is here too.'

Damon's short laugh was bitter.

'From what Katherine told me, I'd lay money he won't be too far away.' He cast a quizzical glance Anna's way. 'You don't know if Francesca was travelling with an entourage?' Anna shook her head.

'I didn't even hear about Francesca myself,' she admitted. 'I was out hunting and my Mom was in the bar at our hotel in New York. When I got back, she told me she'd met a vampire, named Justin, or Dustin, or something like that. Fairly new. Big mouth on him. So, he's talking about some documentary on the handful of _mysterious animal attacks _in Mystic Falls, Virginia, a few months back. You know, the report they're still showing from time to time?'

Damon did know. Although even Stefan had to admit the town had come off relatively scott-free from the whole broken-tomb-seal mishap, the vampires that did escape had made messy meals of a small number of humans that had been unlucky enough to be in the path the vampires beat out of town. Not that Damon could blame the poor mites: they had been starved to a mummified comatose state in a frickin' tomb for best part of 150 years. Still, seven mangled human corpses over two nights in one sleepy town made big news across the nation, and the place had been flooded with reporters for a good couple of weeks. Weeks during which the Salvatore brothers had played the role of shocked human townsfolk with meticulous focus, and Damon, to his chagrin, had not been able to consume fresh human blood.

The damned press were everywhere, and with people keeping a paranoid watch for any animal prints, bite marks or strange behaviour. Of course, after a few weeks with no more attacks, interest in the freak wild animal violence quickly died down and the town emptied out again. Just not before every single person in the town, it seemed, had had a camera shoved in front of their face for their personal thoughts on the tragedy. Even Elena had been forced to beat a hasty retreat when the press hounded the school gates, where two of the students had been among the victims. Damon had chuckled the first time he saw Elena's clearly pissed off face, ducking out of the back of the reporter's shot as she fairly barrelled into the school building to evade another round of quick-fire questions. To be honest, Damon had laughed the second time he'd seen it… and the third… barely noticing Caroline Forbes as she happily stepped in to simper and pout for the cameras.

'Well, Pearl says Justin-slash-Dustin was mouthing off about how the report had been playing a few hours earlier,' Anna was continuing to explain, 'and this hot vampire chick called Francesca he was talking with had totally ditched him because she recognised an old friend in the background of one of the clips. Made a big deal about taking a trip to Mystic Falls to reconnect with her. Pointed her out on the screen: kinda skinny, likes to glare, really shiny hair…'

'Elena,' Damon said, darkly. He could have kicked himself for not realising sooner that this might happen. 'Francesca saw Elena. She thinks Elena is Katherine.' He shot a wry glance at Anna. 'Of all the bars in all the hotels…'

'Pretty pickle this is turning out to be,' Anna observed.

'What the hell is this hotel anyway? They having a vamp getaway special offer or something?' Damon snarked, irritation leaking into his tone, only worsened by Anna's neutral expression. For her part, Anna hadn't been impressed with the human Damon in 1864 and her opinion of him had not improved since then. As a vampire, Damon had cultivated quite the reputation for violence, decadence and a complete disregard for human life, but Anna had seen him with Katherine back in the day and she knew exactly what drove Damon Salvatore. Love was at the root of most human trouble, and when you magnify that through the over-excited emotional spectrum of one totally whipped, newly-turned vampire, a monster like Damon Salvatore was exactly what you got. It was funny, but Damon was one of the last memories she had of her life in Mystic Falls, and 150 years later they were both back in this horrid town and nothing had really changed. Damon was still a slave to his blindly obsessive passion for Katherine Pearce, or this human that was her second coming, and Anna was still unable to free herself and Pearl from the aftershocks of Katherine's actions.

'Let's just say the owner is in the fang family,' she muttered, in response to Damon's question. 'And don't get bitchy at me, Salvatore. You're lucky I bothered to come here and warn you so you can save your precious Elena.'

Damon looked at his old acquaintance thoughtfully out of the side of his eye, his vampire reflexes keeping the car roaring through the deserted streets with unquestionable efficiency. His eyes narrowed, as he pondered the puzzle. He hadn't known Anna terribly well back in the day, but from what he did know then and from more recent history, she was quite a serious, single-minded little thing. Damon admired her ability to get a job done, but Anna did not exactly strike him as the type to do anything that didn't benefit her. An attitude that he could get on board with, frankly.

'Why exactly is that again?' he questioned her. 'Not that I don't appreciate the effort, but you couldn't get out of town fast enough once Pearl was out of that tomb. Why bother hotfooting it back cross-state for a human girl you don't even like?'

Anna shifted in her seat and hesitated a split-second before meeting Damon's enquiring gaze with cool eyes.

'I just thought I owed you,' she said, blandly. 'For helping me get Pearl back. I feel badly about how that turned out for you... that I wasn't exactly truthful about the whole Katherine-not-being-in-the-tomb thing.'

'Bullshit.' Damon grinned.

'Excuse me?'

'You're no bleeding heart, Anna. You did what you had to do, the same as I would have used you if the situations were reversed. I sincerely doubt you've lost any sleep over poor little ole' me.'

'I, uh-'

'Are here because of your big fat crush on Jeremy Gilbert?' Damon completed the sentence, taunting Anna as she glared daggers at him. 'Oh, yes, I noticed the goo-goo eyes you were making at him before you left. Plus, you didn't feed his unconscious ass to Pearl, even though she was still pretty desperate for blood when you carried her out. Gosh, Anna, I can see what appeals to you. Jeremy is such a stud.'

'Shut up, Damon. Maybe when you're not so pathetically whipped by a human replica of the bitch-whore back-stabbing ex that betrayed you, we can open _my _love life up for discussion. Until then, let's return to the regularly scheduled programming, shall we?'

* * *

Elena quickly took stock of the situation. Clearly, there was a vampire on her doorstep. A vampire who apparently thought Elena was Katherine Pearce. Like that vamp-bitch hadn't already caused enough drama in Elena's life. In her mind, Elena wondered how well the 'evil identical twin' explanation would go down. Luckily, although the vampire didn't know it yet, she couldn't come inside the house, so Elena figured she was safe for now. It didn't stop her being terrified though.

'Look,' she tried to explain hastily. 'I'm not who you think I am.' With an elegant raise of one eyebrow, the vampire gave a short, glittery laugh.

'Right,' she said, sarcastically. 'I suppose you weren't expecting to see me, _caro_, but that's what happens when you get sloppy. Seven drained bodies in one night? Sounds like quite a party. Guess my invite must have got lost in the mail.' It was freaking Elena out that the vampire's face was serenely beautiful, despite the cold anger emanating from her. 'What I can't figure out, _Katerina_, is what hold this insignificant speck of a town has over you. Enough to tear you away from the fun we were having in _Milano_ without so much as a goodbye? You were my closest friend. We did everything together. And I know you: big cities, with parties, fashion and excitement- that's you. Not some backwater American small town hell.'

'No, seriously, I-'

'I looked for you, _caro_. I heard you were with Klaus again: I was worried- you know that boy never was any good for you. We tracked you to England, then over to America. Lost you for a while after New York, but finally, the search led us here, to charming Mystic Falls.'

'Us?' Elena asked weakly. The vampire's eyes narrowed.

'Thom and I, of course.' Her gaze saddened, as memories crept over her. 'By the time we got here, it seemed you were dead. Burned to death with a bunch of vampires in a church. Thom and I killed a whole assembly hall full of the townsfolk in vengeance, before those damn vampire hunters got wind of us and we had to flee the town.' Elena blanched, tried not to panic and concentrate on getting out of this mess. 'I thought you were dead for 150 years,' the vampire seethed. 'What? You couldn't find a minute to drop your best friend a _don't worry I'm still undead _note?'

The hand Elena had kept behind the door reached for her phone on the hall dresser, and shakily pressed the speed dial for Damon's cell. Leaving the connection open, praying that Damon would answer her call, she replaced the phone as silently as she could manage.

'Is this Klaus' doing?' the woman demanded. 'I don't know why you can't see what he does to you. He tells you to jump and you ask how high. He's your maker not your father, Katherine. You don't have to go running every time he calls.' Christ, it was like getting a lecture from Caroline or Bonnie- if either of them were bloodsucking creatures of the night with a penchant for ripping people's throats out.

'Look, whoever you are,' Elena tried again. 'I know how this sounds, but it's true. I am _not_ Katherine. I just look really, really similar. Trust me, it's caused more trouble than you know. Honestly, though, I'm not her. My name is-'

'Elena,' came a voice from the hallway behind Elena. Nearly jumping out of the front door in shock, Elena was glad when Damon's strong hands gripped her waist, lifting her easily and placing her behind him. Elena hadn't heard him enter the house, but it wasn't like he needed a second invitation. He flashed her an easy grin as he stepped up to the front door to address their visitor.

'She's telling you the truth, Francesca. Elena is only seventeen years old. She's human.'

'And you are?' Francesca asked, puzzled, and not in a friendly way.

'Damon Salvatore,' Damon replied casually. 'You're Francesca di Mariano, right? Katherine often talked about you.' He leaned toward her, conspiratorially, then blurred to her side, standing so close that his lips were practically touching her ear. 'Pillow talk, you know?'

Francesca frowned, and glared at Elena.

'What is this?'

Damon stepped between them again, shielding Elena from the vampire.

'You're a smart woman, Francesca. Take a minute. Listen to Elena's heartbeat. Get a whiff of that scent. She's human.'

After a minute, while Francesca suspiciously did as Damon suggested, Francesca's frown deepened.

'How can this be? It's impossible.'

'Well, you've got me there,' Damon agreed, with a tight smile. 'No obvious family connections to Katherine. May be just a coincidence. Personally, I only recently found out Katherine was still alive. Grapevine says she's been working with Klaus. Haven't seen my old lover since 1864.'

Well that's one way to abbreviate the story, Elena thought bitterly. One of the vampires Stefan had stopped on his way out of Mystic Falls had some interesting and disturbing stories to tell about Katherine's real agenda back in 1864 and the amulet one of the others had taken with him when they escaped the tomb and went their separate ways. Apparently there was quite a lot of time to kill with idle gossip in that tomb before the vampires starved into delirium. A little digging for information through various connections and it was amazingly how quickly Stefan and Damon had managed to piece the unsettling truth together about what Katherine and Klaus were up to now.

'I hear she was in Chicago.'

'Indeed?' Francesca said, archly. 'And where did you hear that?'

'From me,' Anna piped up from the end of the driveway, and Elena gave a small startled yelp as she noticed her.

'What the hell are you doing here?' Elena demanded, wondering how many more shocks she could handle tonight.

'It's alright,' Damon murmured to Elena. 'She's with us.'

Elena glared at Damon, then Francesca, then Anna. The tiny vampire didn't flinch.

'Hi Elena,' she said, totally focused on the scene playing out between them. 'Are you alone in the house?'

'Er, yeah,' Elena answered, slightly perplexed by the strange question, but quite honestly at the point where she couldn't process any more strange.

'Are you lot quite finished?' Francesca demanded with an impatient stamp of her foot.

'Yes,' Damon answered, pleasantly. 'And you should be too. As you can see, there's been a misunderstanding. No harm, no foul. When you do catch up with Katherine, tell her she's a bitch.'

Elena was growing increasingly nervous at the predatory way in which Francesca was staring at her. As if the vampire hadn't even heard Damon speak, she suddenly moved at lightening speed to the front door, centimetres away from Elena, whose heart was now pounding loudly enough for all three vampires to hear distinctly. By the time Elena's vision had swum into focus, Damon was wedged between her and Francesca, halfway across the threshold, growling under his breath. Anna was at Francesca's back, tensed and ready to spring into action if necessary.

'I'm not going to hurt her,' Francesca was saying, dreamily, completely relaxed. 'I just want to have a closer look. It's remarkable. She looks exactly the same. But her smell…' Francesca inhaled deeply. 'It's nothing like Katherine's. She's so fragile.' Francesca glanced hopefully at Damon. 'Are you going to turn her?'

'No,' Elena snapped, before Damon could answer. 'And quit sta-' The rest of the sentence was smothered by Damon's hand against her mouth.

'Elena's quite happy how she is,' he told Francesca, sparing an apologetic nose-wrinkle for Elena.

'But you stay close to her,' Francesca noted. 'And you loved Katherine.' It was said as an irrefutable statement, and Elena wondered what it was in Damon's face that gave it away every time his maker's name was mentioned. 'This human is a connection to her. I am… interested in that.'

Damon's face clouded over, and he said a little more firmly, 'This would be a good time for you to leave. There's nothing for you and your boyfriend here.'

At the mention of Thom, Francesca's head snapped up and she seemed to come to herself, giving a silvery tinkling laugh.

'Ah, yes. Thom will be wondering where I am. It was very interesting to meet you… all,' she said, giving Elena one last lingering gaze, before she blurred down the steps, and out of sight.

'Oh,' Elena exhaled a heavy breath, and sagged against the doorframe.

Damon and Anna were exchanging worried glances.

'What is it?' she questioned them with trepidation. Damon had moved to her side and was absent–mindedly stroking Elena's arms in a soothing motion. 'Who the hell is Francesca?'

'She was Katherine's BFF,' Damon told her. 'I only know her from what Katherine said, and by reputation. They were both made in Florence during the early Italian Renaissance. That bitch is a complete psychopath.'

'Really? She seemed so normal. Is that why you were being so polite to her?' Elena wondered aloud, a frightening thought suddenly occurring to her. 'Are you scared of her?'

'No,' Damon responded, automatically, glaring as Anna snorted.

'Francesca is older and stronger than both of us,' she explained to Elena. 'Her lover, Thom, is infamous for being three fries short of a happy meal. She never goes anywhere without him trailing along behind. They've done some nasty shit in their time.' She shook her head at Elena. 'Trust me, you don't want to know. Katherine used to be tight with them before she came to Mystic Falls.'

Elena looked at Damon, who was obviously deep in thought. She wasn't sure how she felt about Anna being back in town, but she wondered if Damon remembered that Anna had already been invited into the Gilbert house. As if sensing her concern, Anna smiled grimly.

'Don't worry, I'm not stopping for tea,' she assured Elena. Damon's eyes flickered between the two women, and he seemed to come to some kind of decision.

'Anna, do you want to check on Jeremy?'

'Hold on,' Elena intervened. 'Last time she was around Jeremy she about to feed him to her vampire mother. No way in hell is she going anywhere near my brother.'

'Elena,' Damon sighed, cupping her face and making her meet his cool grey-blue gaze. 'Do you trust me?'

'But-'

'Do you trust me?' Damon repeated. 'Do you trust me to do protect you, including protecting you from the pain of your brother being hurt?'

'You think Jeremy might be-? I-' Elena worried, then moaned in frustration and nodded, eyes scrunched shut. 'Yes,' she whispered. 'Yes, I trust you Damon.' She opened her eyes and saw the deeply emotional undercurrent behind his serene, chiselled face.

'Good,' Damon said softly. 'Then believe me when I tell you that Anna will not harm Jeremy. She is going to protect him.' Elena nodded slowly.

'So, you don't think Francesca will leave town now that she knows I'm not Katherine,' she asked, quietly.

'I think we need to be careful until we know for sure,' Damon said, solemnly. 'I don't think she would have any reason to go after your brother, either, but better safe than sorry, right, princess?'

'Okay,' Elena nodded. She rubbed her hands over her tired face, and gave the address where Jeremy was staying to Anna, who vanished as quickly as Francesca had.

'It's late,' Damon said, as he finally shut the front door and Elena stood, kind of awkwardly, at the bottom of the stairs. 'I'll stay. You should get some sleep. School tomorrow.'

Elena groaned. It seemed impossible that night time standoff's with age old vampires and high school algebra quizzes could both be part of her world, especially within the same 24hour period.

'Nice sushi,' Damon commented, as Elena headed upstairs. She whirled on the steps and gaped at him, not sure she had heard right.

'I _beg_ your pardon?'

Damon smirked.

'Your pyjamas: cute.'

Elena looked down and remembered just how skimpy her Yummy Sushi shorts and vest top were. Blushing to her roots, she actually managed a small laugh, which soon turned into a hiccupping sob, and then Elena was crying onto Damon's leather jacket. She wasn't sure at what point she had ended up pressed against his front, with her arms crushed against his chest and his hands stroking her hair and down her back, while he made soothing noises to calm her down. Then she was being laid gently down on her bed, and the comforting feel and smell of her own squishy duvet cover settled around her. The sobs, borne of sheer tiredness and a healthy dose of adrenaline come-down, had subsided and Elena rubbed the wetness off her cheeks.

'This is the second night in a row I've tucked you into bed,' Damon teased, gently, as he straightened up again. She could hardly see him in the dark room, but the creak of his leather jacket and the deep warmth of his voice was relaxing as Elena curled into a tight ball under the covers. 'Don't tell anyone. This kind of nonsense is going to trash my reputation beyond repair.'

'Don't worry,' Elena smiled at him in the darkness, knowing that Damon could still see her as clear as day. 'I won't tell anyone your nasty little secret. No-one will ever know that you're a good, decent man. Someone a person can count on.' Elena yawned, and stretched under the covers. 'My friend,' she mumbled sleepily. She was nearly asleep, when her eyes shot open and she half sat up again. 'Damon?'

'Right here,' he replied, from the chair in the corner of her room.

Elena breathed audibly.

'I'm such a baby,' she berated herself, 'but I just… Don't go anywhere tonight, okay?'

'Don't worry, I'll keep the monsters away,' Damon promised. 'Oh, and you know we're going to have a talk tomorrow about why exactly you didn't answer any of my fourteen or so calls this evening to try and warn you about Francesca. I seem to remember you campaigned pretty strongly for a dial-a-Salvatore set-up here.'

'Bug off Damon,' Elena murmured, happily.

'I'm just saying,' Damon grouched, 'it was lucky I was already on my way.'

As Elena fell quickly asleep again, Damon mulled over the troubling events of the night. Francesca and Thom's presence worried him more than he cared to admit. Damon had survived for a long time, travelling much shadier paths than Stefan, because he lived by simple rules. Only bite off what you can chew. Don't pick fights you can't win. Look out for number one.

Damon had killed to feed, out of anger and occasionally for the sheer heck of it. Violence and depravity was nothing out of his ball park, as much as Elena almost had him convinced of it, the way she so easily put aside what little she knew of his sins and latched onto any glimmer of good she saw in him. Still, from what Damon knew of Francesca and Thom, that wasn't a fight he wanted to pick. Normally, if they had wanted something of his, to be honest, Damon would have strongly considered giving it to them. If what they wanted was Elena (and Damon felt distinctly uncomfortable with Francesca's gleaming eye on Katherine's human doppelganger tonight) then that was absolutely _not_ an option. Where that left them, Damon was sure was going to be bloody. It was definitely harder protecting another person than it was looking out for just yourself. Damon wasn't afraid of getting his hands dirty, but, he was discovering, he _was _afraid of Elena getting hurt if he failed. For the first time in weeks, Damon half wished Stefan was home. Anna was here, and at the moment he had to be grateful for that. But that was still only two of them, facing two older vamps, and Damon was far from sure that Anna would risk her neck for Jeremy the way Damon would for…

Fuck. Damon's jaw twitched as his mind raced on and completed that wholly terrifying thought. _The way he would risk his life for Elena._

_**TBC**_

_**If you enjoyed reading this, please do review! Next part is going up, like, really soon, and it's totally D/E centric.**_


	8. Chapter 8

**Overprotective**

_**Disclaimer:** I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show._

_**A/N:** Hope this chapter makes lots of you happy smiley people. Can I just say a huge thank you to all of you that leave me such amazing and supportive reviews. I really couldn't stay motivated to keep writing this without knowing people are enjoying the story, and it's nice to get these scenes out of my head and onto the page. Especially since this is my first multi-chapter fic so I really appreciate all your helpful comments, thoughts and encouragement. It also gives me a shiny happy feeling every time someone follows or favourites 'Overprotective', so thanks to all of you lovely people too._

_Erm, *sheepish smile*, I know the updates are slow sometimes, but I'm honestly doing the best I can around my work schedule, so thanks for bearing with me._

_Well, I think I promised this next part of the story was gonna have some __bite…_

**Part 8**

A few days later and Elena was feeling positively cheerful as she used her shiny new door key to open the front door of the Salvatore boarding house. Damon had given the key to her yesterday evening, with a scathing remark about not wanting her to break into the kitchen again anytime soon. They were back to their patented conversational balance of snark and banter, which was way more comfortable for both of them then acknowledging anything that might have happened during the Weekend of Emotional Outbursts and Unprecedented Heroics.

The morning after Francesca's unannounced house visit, Elena had awoken to a rather chipper and irritating Damon-with-a-plan. Two hours later, she had found herself unceremoniously 'moved in' to the Salvatore mansion. Just for the week, she assured Bonnie, who was naturally scandalised. Until Aunt Jenna was back from Grandpa's.

It had just seemed wrong to use Stefan's room while he wasn't there, and despite Damon's lewd suggestions, she certainly wasn't staying in _his_room, so Elena ended up in a guest bedroom next door to Damon's. Elena had loaded up the bereft kitchen with essentials as well as goodies, happy to find at least a working fridge and freezer, even if they had just been housing vodka and some opaque plastic containers belonging to Stefan that Elena didn't even want to think about.

Best of all, she hadn't heard so much as a peep from Francesca or Thom. She had spent the last hour shooting pool with Jeremy at the Grille, and he seemed to be dealing great with everything. They had both spoken to Aunt Jenna the night before, and Grandpa was healing fine. So, Jeremy was just left with griping about how staying with Joel's parents was way more hassle than living with Aunt Jenna, and Elena could just be glad someone was keeping a tight leash on him. This week, she decided she would defnitely rather know where Jeremy was at all times. Jeremy didn't seem to know that Anna was back in town, let alone keeping so close to him, but when Anna had swung by the Salvatore house the day before she had been pretty darn specific about Jeremy's activities that week. Whatever Anna's feelings for Jeremy were, and Elena had seriously mixed, unabashedly hypocritical musings about that whole situation, Anna seemed to be keeping her word about watching over him for a while.

Truthfully though, Elena could get used to living in Damon's beautiful big house, with its rich furnishings and theme of pure old-fashioned luxury. She never saw Damon make it, but every evening there was a roaring fire in the drawing room that Damon seemed most partial to spending time in. It was all dark wood and rich textiles, and in the flickering light, with a glass of whiskey in his hand, Damon seemed to own every one of his one hundred and sixty five years. It was like watching someone from another time, yet the longer Elena spent with Damon, the less separate she felt from him. There were just so many sides to him, and, strangely, Damon was still Damon whether he was eating cheeseburgers in a bar and passing for a college freshman, or lolloping across the antique furniture and sabotaging her efforts at homework, looking like some kind of eighteenth century cad.

Very quickly, Elena started to be able to tell when Damon had just fed, by the subtle flush in his face, and the boost in energy and good spirits it gave him. He was actually a pretty fun housemate. Elena felt guilty not telling Stefan about the temporary living arrangements when he called, but after a sleepless night tossing and turning in her new bed, Elena had come to the conclusion that Stefan would only freak out if she knew about Francesca and Thom being in Mystic Falls. Stefan needed to be focused on what he was doing, and the only way that would continue was if he thought Elena was safe at home. It would be cruel to worry him when there was nothing he could do from a distance, and worse still if Stefan decided to race straight back home without finishing the task at hand. For all of their sakes, Stefan had to stay where he was, find the Old Ones, and make sure his family was protected from whatever fallout was still to come off the back of the Katherine/ tomb/ broken seal debacle.

Besides, Elena was feeling a bit better about the Francesca situation. Whatever Damon's usual habits might have been, dusk had hardly dimmed the sky each evening before he was appearing at Elena's side: in the library, at the Grille, standing in the queue to buy a carton of damn milk at the local shop. If anything, it was almost too overbearing. Elena had to stop him vamping out and ripping into the throat of a guy who jostled against her while she was getting into her car outside the high school. If Damon kept up with the jumpiness, he was going to have to compel half the town's memories away in order to keep his supernatural secret. Still, despite nearly decapitating several members of the chess club (don't ask) and, on one occasion that Elena has a sneaking suspicion was less than accidental, Matt Donovan, the only out-of-town vampire visitor on their radar since the weekend was the pint-sized one crushing on Elena's brother.

'Damon,' Elena called out into the empty foyer, dumping her school satchel and wrestling a cardboard box of arts and crafts materials through the hallway.

'What the hell do you have in there?' Damon asked, appearing from nowhere before her in that unsettling vampire way of his. He quirked an amused eyebrow as he pulled a stray length of red raffia from the top of the box.

'It's for the school pep rally,' Elena said, a touch defiantly. 'I'm on the decorating committee.' Damon stared as if she was speaking a foreign language. Elena grimaced back and shoved the box into Damon's arms. 'Fine. Caroline is _making_ me be on the decorating committee,' she admitted. Pushing past Damon, she headed to the kitchen. 'Do we have any cookie dough ice-cream left?'

'You say that like I've touched it,' Damon replied. 'Do I accuse you of drinking my AB negative?'

'Do you store it in the communal fridge?'

Damon pulled a disgusted face.

'Hell, no. That's revolting. The only way to drink blood is at 98.6 degrees, nice and fresh. I suppose being two days old and refrigerated can't make the rat juice Stefan lives off taste any worse, but some of us are more refined.'

Elena paused, with the freezer door half way open, to wrinkle her nose indelicately.

'You're actually going to make me be sick,' she told him.

'Hey, you're the one who kisses him after he drinks that shit,' Damon mocked her, blurring out of reach before the slap Elena aimed his way could land home.

'I didn't mean that,' Elena chuckled. 'Just stop all the blood talk. Hello, human girl in the house. It's kind of gross. Rat or… other.'

'Well I wouldn't want to put you off your massively healthy dinner,' Damon joked, looked pointedly at the spoonful of ice-cream disappearing into Elena's mouth.

'This from the guy who's idea of a healthy meal is snacking on a member of the netball team,' Elena snarked back.

After a startled moment, Damon threw his head back and laughed.

'Was that a joke about _eating people_? Elena Gilbert you ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

Elena flushed a little and bit her bottom lip in a way that affected Damon more than it should.

'Yeah,' she said, softly. She took her dish of dessert through to the old-fashioned formal dinning room, and plonked herself down at one end of it. Damon followed, hopping up to sit on the edge of the table a few seats down, with his bare feet tangling in the carved woodwork of the char nearest to him. Elena marvelled again at how he managed to exude such a sense of power, fully owning the overbearing and decadent surroundings, whilst he wandered around the house looking like some older relative should be walking in any minute and telling him to get his feet off the furniture.

It was in the eyes, Elena decided. Damon exuded the carefree frivolity and gleeful irreverence of the eternally young, but, the more she got to know him, the more she could see the age showing in his eyes. Something dark and extremely dangerous, too knowing and maybe a little bit tragic. In her heart, Elena believed Damon was a good person. To reconcile that with knowing that he was a murderer, that he had killed people- some that she had known- up until the last few months without guilt or remorse- took a lot of sorting in Elena's mind, a degree of compartmentalisation and a healthy dose of affection. True, it had started as abiding Damon's presence and trying to support Stefan's hope, time after fruitless time, that his brother would change. Then, something happened. Amidst all the drama, blood and messiness that the Salvatore's had brought into Elena's life, she found something in Damon that she connected to. Something different from the earnest adoration that Stefan bestowed on her. Like maybe Damon could see the _real_ her, the bits that were messed up after her parent's death, the parts that were vain, self-centred and generally not-so-shiny even before that. Like maybe Damon could see all that and manage not to judge her, or try to change any of it. Damon saw all of that in her and whatever he felt for Elena, he felt for the whole package, not just the gentle, post-orphaned shell that Stefan so sweetly worshipped and put up on an impossible pedestal.

In return, Elena found herself understanding why Damon did a lot of the awful things he did.

There was an amazing capacity for love and loyalty within Damon, and Elena could in principle, if not accept, then at least empathise with Damon's choice to take any steps necessary to protect the people he loved. It was a far cry from decent justification, but a lot of the hurt Damon inflicted was obviously a direct pass-on of the turmoil in himself. Elena was absolutely sure that Damon loved his brother, and clearly he had carried a burning torch for Katherine long enough that, even with everything he knew about her now, it would take a long time to extinguish those feelings. As far as Elena was concerned, as long as Damon was actually making an effort to live like a decent person, she would never turn her back on him. Just maybe this would really be the turning point, and for the first time since they became vampires, the Salvatore brothers could come to peace with each other. And that, Elena thought with satisfaction, would be as much of a death knell to Katherine's poisonous influence as it was possible to achieve.

'Whatchya thinking 'bout?' Damon asked, like a mischevious little kid bored of playing with his toys. Which he kind of was, Elena supposed, since he was stuck shadowing her through all the night time hours. 'You've got that very serious, pouty look on your face.'

'I don't pout.'

'Whatchya not-pouting about?'

Elena sighed. 'I was just thinking about you and Stefan,' she admitted.

Damon's eyebrows waggled, vaudeville style.

'Kinky,' he leered. 'Not usually my bag, but for you?' He shrugged and grinned in a very dirty way. 'Tell me, in detail, what you had in mind and I'll give it some very serious consideration.'

'You are unbelievable,' Elena shook her head at him in surrender.

'Babe, you have no idea,' Damon agreed, reaching playfully across the table to grab one of her hands.

'Uh,' Elena exclaimed, resisting as he started to pull her towards him. Damon was almost impossible to resist when he was in this friendly, flirty mood. She was almost sure it was harmless, and positive that it was impossible for him to be any other way. 'Are you going to be like this all night?'

'Oh, fine,' Damon mock-pouted and released her hand. 'Buzz-kill. What do you want to do?'

'Not what I _want_ to do,' Elena told him. 'What I _have_ to do. I've got, like, three chapters of my history textbook to read before class tomorrow morning.'

'Which chapters? Maybe I was there- I bet I can tell the story better.'

Elena snorted.

'I doubt you have any stories to tell me that I could repeat in my history class,' she teased him, as she started towards the front door. 'I'm just going to grab the book from my car.'

As she opened the front door and stepped outside, several things happened at once. Later, she could never exactly separate the sequence out in her head. There was definitely a very blond, very tall man in front of her, whom she didn't recognise. She definitely saw Francesca standing off to the side, smiling like a kid on Christmas morning and saying something to the blond man. A sharp, breath-taking pain thundered through Elena's face as something very hard connected with her left cheekbone, and as dizziness took over, the last thing Elena registered before she hit the ground was a ferocious, terrifying growl from behind her.

It could hardly have been a minute later when Elena came to, propped up against the outside wall by the vampire version of Aphrodite. Spiky black hair and an impish grin greeted her groggy gaze.

'There you are, sleepyhead,' Francesca said, in a creepily friendly tone.

Elena's head felt like she was carrying a ton of bricks on it, and her cheek was burning. There was some awful noise happening, crashing, crunching and animal-like snarls. It took Elena a moment to realise it was the sound of fighting. Or, more accurately, of vampires fighting, which was nothing like anything Elena had ever seen before. Stefan and Damon trapping and torturing Elena's hooded assailant at the school dance, or even Lexi's boyfriend's vengeance attack on Damon in Georgia, was a tea party compared to what was happening outside the Salvatore boarding house right now.

'We'll be leaving in a minute,' Francesca was cooing to her, stroking the hair back out of Elena's throbbing face. 'My Thom is just dealing with that pretty little inconvenience that is so protective of you. He doesn't seem to want you to come with us.'

At that moment, the blond vampire- Thom- threw Damon so hard that he landed with an bone-rattling crash on top of Anna's bright orange sports car (the one that she had deemed too conspicuous to drive in Mystic Falls, preferring to stay on foot for the duration of her visit), leaving a massive dent in on the hood and setting off the anti-theft alarm.

'No,' Elena half-moaned, half-gasped, lurching instinctually past Francesca, towards where Damon had fallen. Francesca caught the tops of her arms from behind, those delicate fingers digging painfully into Elena's flesh. She tugged Elena back so that she was flush against the vampire's front. Francesca's teeth scraped against Elena's neck, making her shudder in fear and revulsion.

When he had regained the upperhand, Damon's eyes caught hers, while his knee was pressing Thom into the damp earth beneath, and his vamped out face was feral and enraged. Then Thom's arms clamped around Damon's torso, and they were off again.

'Shhh,' Francesca soothed her. 'It will be over soon enough. Thom is much older than Damon, he will easily best him. Then we can go. Oh,' her fingers squeezed Elena's arms in excitement, 'we're going to have so much fun together.'

The duelling vampires were a blur of motion and noise in the dark that Elena could barely keep up with, but she could tell Damon wasn't coming out of it well. Clods of earth were flying, trees were getting crashed into and to top it off, it had started raining. The sound of ribs cracking, heads butting and thudding punches landing on flesh, was all audible over the waning shrill of the car alarm. It sickened Elena to her stomach, each revolting noise and terrifying sight glimpsed in the moonlight burned into her memory. She wished Damon would stop. This was fruitless, and there was no point in Damon dying too. Oh, God, Stefan would be inconsolable if he lost them both.

'Please,' Elena whimpered. 'Let him go. You don't need to kill him.'

'Of course we do,' Francesca said matter of factly. 'He challenged us. The silly little boy is in love with you because you look like Katherine. He would probably be enough of an idiot to come after us. Plus,' she added, with a petulant whine, 'it was really rude of him to try and keep you from me. Katherine was _my_ best friend. _Damon_ was just one of her meaningless conquests. If anyone should get to play with you, it's me.'

'I vote no-one gets to _play_with me,' Elena choked out, tired of this vampire bullshit, and less inclined to put up with it if she and Damon were lost anyway. 'I'm a human being, not a doll.'

Francesca laughed prettily in Elena's ear and licked playfully at the side of her neck.

'I like you, Elena,' she declared gaily. 'I was really mad when I found out you weren't Katherine, but now I'm glad we've met. This is going to be great, us girls together. I might even turn you. Katherine will be so pissed when we find her.'

The fight, which was clearly winding down, was getting close enough to Elena that she could see the blood and swollen flesh on both Damon and Thom.

'Stop,' Elena screamed, as Thom smashed Damon's head into the ground near her feet. 'Please,' she begged. 'Please don't hurt him anymore.' She realised she was crying, deep gasping breaths racking her ribcage. She couldn't watch these animals kill Damon in front of her. They should never have been here. _None_ of them should be here. This was all wrong.

Damon's eyes met hers, and something like a lopsided smirk appeared on his bloodied mouth. Her lurched suddenly towards her, in a move that made no sense, since Thom, towering over them all like some expressionless robotic action-man, watched in confusion for a moment, before grabbing for Damon's calves and dragging him backwards, off Elena. Just not before Damon's hand had grasped Elena's, slick with blood, mud and sweat. As his hand slipped from hers, she felt something in it. Glancing down carefully, so as not to alert Francesca, Elena's heart skipped a beat. Damon had pressed into her palm a plastic syringe of pure vervain extract, probably the one he had insisted she carry in her school bag (against Elena's protests, since she was far from sure how she would explain that one to the headmaster in the event of a random drugs search). She had never been more grateful for Damon's irritatingly proactive stance on vervain protection, or her habit of abandoning her school bag just inside the front door. Damon, though… Damon was an idiot. He should have used this himself, on the vampire who was currently beating him senseless, instead of trying to save her. Again. If Elena lived through this at the expense of Damon, she was going to resurrect him and kill him all over again.

'Enough,' Francesca drawled, releasing Elena to stroll a few paces in front of her and glare at the brawling vampires. 'End it, Thom.' Thom had a large jagged tree branch, ripped from the ash tree in the driveway, poised over Damon's heart.

'Let Elena go,' Damon was growling, still struggling futilely against Thom's iron grip. 'She's not Katherine. She's nothing to you. Human.'

Elena wasn't a fighter, and had no idea how to do this, but she couldn't stand there and do nothing. Without over-thinking it, Elena stepped forward and jabbed the needle into the first part of Francesca she could reach, straight in the back, just behind her heart. She sunk the plunger down in one swift motion, then backed away as Francesca spun around and stared at her in shock. Wide eyed, Francesca staggered a couple of steps sideways.

'Thom?' she whimpered, before her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped the ground, still awake but obviously without proper control of her body.

Elena, with her eyes fixed warily on Francesca, heard rather than saw it when Thom thrust that splintered tree branch straight into Damon's chest.

**_TBC_**


	9. Chapter 9

**Overprotective**

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show.

**Part 9**

_Elena, with her eyes fixed warily on Francesca, heard rather than saw it when Thom thrust that splintered tree branch straight into Damon's chest. _

The blood-curdling scream of agony from Damon as Thom maliciously twisted the branch, then ripped it back out again, set every nerve in Elena's body shuddering into shutdown, and, numbly, she turned towards the awful sound. Then Thom knocked her flat on the ground in his haste to get to Francesca's side. He bent over his lover's shaking, poisoned body and Elena knew she had only moments to act on a theory that might not even turn out to be right.

Scrambling to her feet, she raced across the muddy lawn to Damon's side, nearly landing on the discarded filthy stake at his side. He was still alive, and various obscene curse words were decipherable amongst his delirious pain-ridden mumblings, so at least the stake had missed his heart, but he was clearly unable to move himself. With no time to care for his comfort, Elena grasped Damon under his armpits and dragged him backwards along the ground, in ungraceful jerks and tugs. Breathing hard, she relied on the rush of adrenaline brought on by the brainwave that had given her a glimmer of hope for both of their survival. Elena was just getting to the porch when she heard a furious growl, and saw Thom's head snap up from where he was bent over the ailing Francesca. The eyes that locked on Elena were pools of pure evil, and Elena was now wondering if maybe riling the angry super-strong psychopathic vampire hadn't been the best idea she'd ever had.

As if in slow-motion, Elena registered the tensing of Thom's muscles as he prepared to launch himself across the lawn at Damon and her.

'Come on, Damon,' she shouted, desperately, and with some last reserve of effort, Damon managed to push with his feet and Elena pulled them both through the open door, collapsing in a tangled heap on the hall floor. They were barely inside when Thom crashed into the invisible barrier across the door. Elena's heart almost stopped as the enraged vampire re-gathered himself and tried to shoulder his way through the mystical forcefield, but the barrier held. Nearly laughing with relief that her impulse had been right, Elena crawled out from under Damon, got shakily to her feet and drew herself up to look Thom in the eye.

'I live here now,' she told him, trying to hold her voice steady, 'and you and you're bitch girlfriend are _not_ invited in.' Thom snarled and his vampire visage twisted with venom and malevolence. Glaring, Elena slammed the door in his face.

***

Damon was a state. The bloody mess of torn clothing and flesh on his chest was sticky and oozing. Elena could tell the pain was getting to him in a bad way, as waves of his dark hair clung damply to his forehead. His face had never looked more inhuman; the veins darkened and spidery around his eye sockets, the eyes themselves swallowed into inky black pools. Deadly looking canines were extended and protruding from pale, dry lips. If Elena had ever forgotten that this was the monster living inside Damon Salvatore, there was no hiding from it right now. The pain-ridden, bloody mess writhing on the hardwood floor of the cavernous living room area was not remotely human.

Part of Elena was terrified by that. Damon had always been frightening, though, and even at the best of times she had never entirely relaxed into his company. There was always that exciting feeling, when with Damon, of being too close to a dangerous predator, even when all his actions (recently, at least) said he was a friend to her.

Strangely, despite the horrifying sight before her, Elena's overriding feeling was not fear _of_ Damon, but fear _for_ him. This was Damon, and she knew him. She, in some way as yet indefinable to her, cared about him. Plus, he was Stefan's big brother and, despite everything that had passed between the pair, Stefan loved him. Damon was… She paused, even in the middle of the thought, turning it over in her mind. It was right though, wasn't it? Damon was family.

Right now, Damon was in very bad shape. Elena did not have to be a vampire expert to know that. Vampires could heal from a lot of things, but the tears to his flesh were deep and the remains of the wooden stake that had missed his heart were still splintered in the chest cavity, poisoning him slowly and painfully. Damon might die, she realised.

The numbness that had cloaked her since the attack suddenly lifted and panic replaced it with a pulse pounding whoosh of panic. Damon might _die_. Sinking to the floor, Elena grabbed Damon's hand and squeezed it hard.

'Hold on.' She pulled at his bedraggled shirt, ripping the fabric from his body in as few moves as possible. It must have hurt like hell when the parts already sticking to his mangled skin came away at her insistence. Elena surveyed the horrific mess, trying hard not to gag. The poison was already working through his body, but maybe if she could remove the source it would help.

'One moment,' Elena told Damon, who was probably too far gone to hear her. Racing as fast as her legs would take her to her bedroom, she found what she was looking for almost immediately: her wash bag. Digging her hands, slippery with vampire blood, inside the flowery vanity case, she came up triumphantly clutching a pair of long handled tweezers.

Back downstairs, she grabbed a nearly-full bottle of whiskey from one of the sideboards, and sank back down again at Damon's side. Elena shut her eyes for the briefest of seconds, and mentally steeled herself. Then, not really knowing if it was necessary for a vampire but thinking it better to be safe than sorry, she poured a good measure of the brown-tinged liquid straight from the bottle onto the tweezers.

'I think this is really going to hurt,' she admitted, avoiding looking at Damon's already agonised face.

'Just do it quickly,' he surprised her by answering, with words gritted out through his clenched jaw.

'Yeah.' Deep breath. 'Okay.'

Elena poked the tweezers gingerly into the giant hole in Damon's chest, and set about removing the offending splinters. It took several minutes, and every second passing seemed to be in slow-motion. The little chips of wood were, thankfully, still large enough to locate with the small metal implement. Elena had to use her fingers, sliding in the blood and gore, to winch the gashes further open to dig around for every last splinter. Beneath her hands, she could feel Damon's heart pulsating in slow, erratic jerks. It was the most revolting thing she had ever done but, after the first splinter came away, her discomfort slid to the back of her mind and she concentrated all her energy on the task.

Finally, Elena's probing fingers could find no more trace of the poisonous splinters in Damon's chest. Breathing deeply, she let the tweezers slip from her fingers and noticed with worry that her fumbling amateur surgical attempts appeared to have worsened the bleeding. Elena shrugged off the thin sweater she wore over her vest, and pressed it against the wound, trying to stem the blood flow. The material swelled with redness almost immediately.

'Damon,' she said, and her voice was urgent even as it trembled. 'What else can I do?'

For a moment he did not answer her, just cast his eyes wildly about in a haze of pain. Those terrifying eyes finally clamped onto her own and visibly re-focused. His head strained toward her in a strange half-involuntary jerk. Then, Damon gathered his strength and with an impressive display of effort managed to use his feet to push himself further away from Elena, so he was half-raised against the base of one of the aging chaise- lounges. His voice spluttered through a mouthful of his own blood and he appeared to find it difficult to speak.

'No,' was the word he finally spat out. Damon's eyes closed and his whole body shuddered in a terrible way. 'No,' he repeated. 'Don't need it… Be… fine.'

'What? What do you need? I'll get it-'

Elena broke off. Oh, stupid, stupid girl. She knew what he needed. Of course she knew. He was a vampire. There was only one thing he ever needed. One thing to sustain him and… heal him. It was the one thing that she had in abundance.

'Blood,' she whispered, hardly realising she said it aloud. Instinctively, her body shifted and angled away from the vampire. Her whole being froze with the awful realization. It was, when she considered it, a miracle that Damon had not pinned her down and taken it from her already. He would not have survived for nearly two centuries without a healthy respect for his survival instinct. Now, when he had lost too much of his own blood to heal himself properly, when his need was so great, Damon was saying no? Why?

There was no time to worry about it now. Damon was fading fast and Elena had to make a choice quickly. What if it was Stefan? Guiltily, Elena acknowledged already knew the answer to that. If it was Stefan she would not hesitate. There was nothing she would not do, no part of herself she would not give to save him. That was different though: she trusted Stefan with her life. A slightly hysterical giggle rose to her lips. Her life was exactly what she would have to trust a vampire with to consider letting him feed on her blood. The risks were high anyway, Stefan had once explained to her: the temptation to keep drinking beyond what was safe, beyond what a human could recover from, was strong at the best of times. Let alone for a vampire in Damon's current weakened state. He looked half crazed. He looked…

He looked like he had just sustained potentially fatal wounds protecting her, Elena told herself, berating her own selfishness. How would she ever live with herself- and how could she look Stefan in the eye again- if she did not try to save Damon. More than that, Elena had a wild notion that, whatever this thing between her and Damon was, it meant that some part of her would not go on without him. If Damon, who never needed anything from anyone, needed her to do this, Elena could not refuse.

It was just that, simply, she was terrified.

'Pull yourself together,' she muttered to herself under her breath, and gathered her courage. How did she even do this? Damon was almost still now, looking awkward with his head and shoulders wedged up against the furniture. As she cautiously approached him once more, sliding her knees across the hardwood floor, Damon's eyes flickered open and widened slightly.

'Elena, no,' he croaked.

'Yes,' she said, and was pleased at how firm her voice sounded. She grabbed his chin and boldly looked him straight in the scary veiny eyes. 'Damon, you are not going to die.'

He eyed her desperately, gaze sliding from her face to her exposed, white throat. Elena felt her heart hammering in her chest and tried to hold her nerve. Damon shook his head almost imperceptibly, but did not tear his eyes away.

'Stefan-' he began to whisper, but was quickly cut off.

'Stefan would kill me if I let you die.'

Through a gasp of pain, Damon almost managed a snort.

'You've got that… the wrong way… round,' he stuttered. He was still looking at her throat though, and Elena knew he had given in. Which was a good thing, she was almost sure.

Precious minutes had already passed and Elena knew she could not put this off any longer.

'You're going to have to help me out here, Damon,' she muttered, feeling strangely like a virgin on prom night. 'I've never… I mean, what do I do?'

Damon's forehead creased and with one last, darkly burning look at her, his resolve melted. He was too desperate and he had to believe he could take what he needed without hurting her.

'Your wrist,' he said, quietly.

Elena's hand was shaking as she moved closer to him. She was sat on the floor next to him, as close as she could get to facing his torso. Pressing her right palm on the floor for support, she held up her wrist to his mouth. She saw his eyes flutter shut, felt his warm laboured breath on the skin there. Then, his lips gently pressed to the skin above her vein, holding there for the barest of moments, while he orientated himself.

'Try to relax,' he barely managed to whisper.

She had the crazy but irrepressible feeling that this was the most intimate it was possible to be with someone. Oh, God, what was she doing? What was she- ?

Damon's tongue slid once along her inner wrist before he bit.

The pain was bad. Elena could felt his teeth puncturing her flesh and though his bite was well-practised and clean, his desperation to feed must have marred his usual finesse. It was an awful feeling: being _fed_ on. Because that's what it was, no doubt in Elena's mind. She felt like food. The strange sensation of her blood being drawn from her veins, the tugging feeling as Damon sucked greedily and the unpleasant sounds that accompanied it were just plain unsettling. The bite itself stung awfully and continued to throb with nasty pangs of searing hot pain as Damon took from her. It nearly took Elena's breath away and she loathed the pathetic whimper that escaped her lips. Then, after a minute she could feel him gaining a little strength, as he clamped her wrist just a little more firmly to his mouth.

The feeling changed. Somewhere along the way the searing pain dulled to a gentle throb, and she stopped feeling like a piece of meat, a _thing_ being used. Elena started to feel like she was giving something special, something cherished. Her life-blood was nourishing Damon and it was precious and wonderful. Damon had not taken that much yet, but she could somehow feel the cloying, heavy blanket of decay and death that had been spread over him starting to withdraw. She was healing him with her body. Encouraged, she allowed herself to breath and tried to relax her tense posture, knowing that struggling against Damon's bite would only make it hurt more. A kind of warm tingling was starting to spread through her body, starting at her wrist but blossoming outwards. It was not altogether unpleasant, almost soothing.

Sighing, pleased, Elena let her body unwind. Where she had been holding herself stiffly above Damon, she now unintentionally sunk against his chest. With his recovering strength, it was not too difficult for Damon to pull her fully onto his lap. He momentarily released her wrist, his tongue remaining after his teeth to lick gently at the wound.

It felt almost natural to Elena when he tilted her back so she was looking up at him, and bent his head to her neck. He was starting to look like Damon again, she thought dreamily, assessing his brighter eyes and sturdier movements. He rested his mouth against her throat, tilting her head with a gentle hand and running his lips round to the perfect spot on the side of her neck.

'This will be better,' he whispered into her skin. Though still very weak, hurt and hungry, the blood he had already taken had rid him of the slight delirium he had fallen under earlier. When he had first fed from Elena it had been pure animal need, with no room for finesse. Now he was coming back to himself he could do it without hurting her like before. After all, he had been feeding on humans for over a century and in that time had mastered the skill of using his deadliest weapons to inflict ecstasy or pain. If there was one thing Damon Salvatore knew, it was how to make the act of blood-taking a pleasurable experience, when he wanted to. And if there was one person he didn't want to hurt...

This time, when Damon's teeth bit into her neck, the sting of punctured flesh was fleeting and almost immediately replaced with that tingling warmth. Elena could feel the blood being drawn out of her veins, but smoothly, and Damon's lips on her skin felt more like a caress than an attack. She found she could lose herself to the intense waves of sensation, feeling like she was floating in a pleasant haze. Time and space slipped away, though she was aware of Damon's mouth at her neck, his arm supporting her back and his hand grasping a handful of hair at the back of her head, holding her in place. Everything was somehow going to be all right, she thought, surrendering herself completely. The feeling was intensifying, building into shuddering throbs of pleasure spiralling through her nervous system; it was both deeply sexual and, at once, almost ethereal, like she was disconnected from her own body. Wanting more, but unable to really gather her faculties enough to move her body in search of what she needed, Elena crested through the pleasures-waves, absorbing every delicious sensation that spilled over her, tugging at nerves far away from where Damon was actually touching her. Elena felt indescribably connected to him, like part of her was melting into Damon, and he into her, so she could hardly tell where the thick, messy lines between them were drawn.

'Mmmm, Damon,' Elena moaned, barely conscious of her murmurings.

The sucking pressure at her neck lessened and she thought she heard Damon groan faintly as he jerked his mouth away from her.

For a second there was nothing to break the silence of the house, except Elena's laboured breathing and something almost like a frustrated quiet growl from the vampire.

'Enough,' Damon said on a quiet breath, insistent, but she could tell he was not really talking to her. She wanted to make her eyes focus on him, to see if he looked better and stronger. It was too much, though. Feeling bereft as the wonderful building pressure slipped away from her, Elena let out a feeble moan of opposition. 'Enough,' Damon repeated, sounding no more convinced than the first time.

Damon tugged her slender, malleable body closer into his embrace, tangling his hands in her hair and curling her into an almost foetal position on his lap. Elena tried to fight her way through the cloying fog, but the allure of his solid unyielding form was too strong. Elena sank fully against Damon, thinking in the back of her mind that this must not be good for the sucking chest wound she was now laid flush against. Damon pressed gentle kisses into her hairline and just around her ear.

'Oh, Elena,' he mouthed against her skin, breathing her name like a dark, twisted prayer. 'Elena, love. You need to rest now.'

Elena needed no encouragement to slip into the welcoming darkness that beckoned.

**TBC**

_**A/N: Hmmm, where will we go from here??? **_

_**Anway, please please pretty please with a cherry and sprinkles on top will you leave a review, dear reader? **_

_**Teaser, anyone?:**_

_['Stefan,' Elena cut him off. 'You don't need to worry about me. I'm fine. When it came down to it, Damon was here for me, just like you said he would be.'_

_'I'm glad,' Stefan said, but his voice sounded a little strained, even to Elena's human ears. 'Elena,' Stefan paused, apparently struggling with a difficult question. His voice was low and tired, but honest. Hearing him made Elena long to have his strong arms wrapped around her, or to run her hands gently over his beautiful face. 'Earlier, I woke you up. And Damon was… It seemed…' Stefan trailed off, too gentlemanly to phrase the question explicitly. The pain in his voice cut through Elena like a knife through hot butter, straight to her gut. _

_Elena closed her eyes, feeling miserable. When she opened them, Damon's concerned, dazzling blue-grey eyes were right in front of her, close enough that she could reach out and touch him.] _

_**Who's for some love-triangle angst, then? And I don't want any shit because Elena still has feelings for Stefan. :-) **__**This**__** Elena is in love with them both, whether or not she realises it yet, and therein lies the fun of it. **_

_(xoxoxo)_


	10. Chapter 10

**Overprotective**

_Disclaimer: I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show._

**Part 10**

Something was beeping. Elena tried to ignore it, but the electronic pitch grew more shrill and insistent until she was unwillingly clawed from the blissful spell of unconsciousness.

'Shush,' she grumbled, annoyed at the unwelcome intrusion. As she roused herself properly awake, determined to find and destroy the source of that irritating beeping, Elena became aware of how uncomfortable she was. Why were they on the floor? It was cold, and she was squashed against Stefan's body in a weird, curled up kind of hug. When she shifted slightly, her nose bumped against his cool face, and Elena nuzzled softly into his cheek. From underneath her, she felt Stefan stir and his arms that encircled her moved to assist her own effort to raise her body up off him. She could feel that her hair was a tangled mess as she lifted her head, dragging the length of her hair across Stefan's shoulders in the process and then scraping it back off her face.

Clear, bluish-grey eyes with just a hint of mischief stared up at her. Not Stefan, _not_ Stefan, _not_ _Stefan_-

Elena's brain finally caught up with itself.

'Damon,' she gasped, lurching back in shock and ending up basically straddling his hips. She winced at the twinge in her neck when her head snapped back too quickly. 'What the-' Oh. _Shit._ In full technicolor glory, it all came rushing back to her. The attack outside the house; that vampire man-bitch running a tree branch through Damon's chest; Elena dragging him inside the house and trying to patch him up as he writhed in agony on the floor; offering him her wrist, her neck, her _blood_.

'You were expecting someone else?' Damon questioned comfortably, with a hint of defiance in the jut of his chin.

Oh, God. Elena flushed crimson as the memory of Damon biting her or, more specifically, of her rather unexpected reaction to him biting her, flooded her mind. She felt slightly dazed, very embarrassed and… what the hell was that ringing?

'That's you,' Damon was saying, with overt patience. Elena blinked, uncomprehending. He sighed. 'Your phone. In your pocket?'

Oh. Yes. That's what the sound was. Damon patted the denim pocket on the front of Elena's jeans and her fingers flew there with lightening speed to cut him off. She did not miss the trademark smirk as he pulled his hand back. Without reading the display, Elena flipped the cover open and pressed it to her ear.

'Hello?' she said, and even to her own ears, her voice sounded strained.

'Elena,' Stefan's rich, soothing voice said. Shit. Elena cringed. She would a hundred times rather have had a little time to get herself in order and figure out what the hell last night meant, before speaking to Stefan. Yet another part of her lit up as always, just to hear from him. She physically ached with wishing Stefan was here now, to clear up this mess that she and Damon were making and to make sense of everything.

'Elena, love?' Stefan questioned.

'Uh, yes,' Elena answered, shaking her head to try and right herself. With another flush of mortification, she realised she was still straddling Damon, who was looking at her curiously. 'Yes, I'm here. Sorry, I just woke up. You have my full attention,' she lied, even as her eyes flickered to Damon's face. Quickly, she scrambled to her feet, and turned away from him.

'Is everything alright?'

Oh, boy, was everything _not_ alright. Elena hesitated, wanting so badly to tell Stefan everything. She and Damon had been openly attacked, outside the Salvatore boarding house no less. Damon had nearly died. Despite her acute personal issues with whatever had happened when Damon fed from her last night, Elena was clear that she had acted only to save Damon and Stefan would have wanted that. Surely he would not feel betrayed by that? If she didn't tell him, it would be as bad as lying. It would be saying there was something to hide.

'Stefan, I-' Elena broke off, worrying at her bottom lip. Where did she begin? 'It's Damon. He-'

Without warning, slightly clammy hands wrapped around her waist and spun her in a half-turn, jerking the words right out of her mouth. Damon was on his feet, his face inches from hers and looking pretty damn serious.

'No,' he mouthed, soundlessly, and held her gaze intently while he shook his head. There was nothing smug or arrogant in his look. Elena found herself trusting the gravity in his eyes.

'…he wants to speak to you,' Elena finished, weakly, and handed the phone over.

While Damon reassured Stefan that everything was fine, Elena surveyed the living area. Even in the limited daylight that reached the Salvatore inner sanctum from the thick, stained glass windows, the place looked awful. There were smears of Damon's blood over all the furniture that they had touched on the way from the front door to the chaise lounge they had woken up next to this morning. More blood and messy rags, which were actually Damon's shirt and Elena's sweater, she discovered, were strewn around the floor, next to the open bottle of whiskey and her makeshift surgical apparatus. Looking down at her own body, she noticed the reddish-brown stains on the front of her pale pink vest top. Ugly purplish bruises were starting to colour on the tops of her arms and her left cheekbone felt like a bowling ball had taken up residence under her skin. More of Damon's blood was crusted over her hands and under her fingernails. Elena looked in disbelief at the almost healed bite mark on her wrist, and when she felt along the skin of her neck with a tentative hand, she thought the two tiny bumps she felt there were even smoother than the first of Damon's marks. She felt achy all over and a little dizzy. Still, she couldn't help thinking they had come out of the encounter pretty lightly, all things considered. They were both still alive, or as much as they each had been at the start of the night.

Glancing over to Damon, to confirm the accuracy of that, she noticed he was sitting back down again, whilst talking to Stefan. He was still weak, Elena realised. His skin was too pale and even his face did not move with his usual exuberance. Damon would have to feed again in order to fully heal, and quickly. Where the hell was Redhead when you needed a home delivery? Damon's chest was still bare though, so at least she could see that beneath the layers of dried blood, the torn flesh was all but normalised again, the smooth new skin forming where Elena had pulled the remaining splinters out a few hours ago.

Elena listened while Damon told Stefan a watered down version of last night's events, conveniently leaving out the identities of their vampire attackers, the giant stake that had nearly lost Stefan a sibling and the part where his girlfriend acted as a blood-donor. Finally, Damon handed the phone back to her. Elena smiled weakly, and walked towards the back parlour, for some semblance of privacy.

'Elena,' Stefan was saying. 'Thank God you weren't hurt.'

'Oh, yeah, we were lucky, I guess,' Elena lied, cringing at the deception.

'I don't know what I would do if-'

'Stefan,' Elena cut him off. 'You don't need to worry about me. I'm fine. When it came down to it, Damon was here for me, just like you said he would be.'

'I'm glad,' Stefan said, but his voice sounded a little strained, even to Elena's human ears. 'Elena,' Stefan paused, apparently struggling with a difficult question. His voice was low and tired, but honest. Hearing him made Elena long to have his strong arms wrapped around her, or to run her hands gently over his beautiful face. 'Earlier, I woke you up. And Damon was… It seemed…' Stefan trailed off, too gentlemanly to phrase the question explicitly. The pain in his voice cut through Elena like a knife through hot butter, straight to her gut.

'I fell asleep downstairs,' Elena said, working hard to keep her voice steady. 'I was exhausted, after last night. Damon was pretty beat up. I guess he didn't make it up to his bedroom either.'

There was a brief silence in the wake of her half-truths.

'Okay,' Stefan said, sounding relieved. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have even asked. I'm going crazy out here, missing you. Please forgive me, Elena.'

Elena closed her eyes, feeling miserable. When she opened them, she nearly jumped at the sight of Damon's concerned, dazzling blue-grey eyes right in front of her, close enough that she could reach out and touch him. So much for the illusion of privacy.

'There's nothing to forgive,' she said, quietly.

'I love you.'

Damon leaned against the wall, arms folded, eyeing her steadily. Elena met his gaze, sadly.

'I love you too.'

'Be safe, love.'

'Take your own advice,' she murmured, before hanging up.

Damon was still hovering in front of her face, with a scarily intense look on his face that could have been anger, affection, desire, or a volatile cocktail of the above. Elena found herself unable, or unwilling, to move away from him. No, Stefan had done nothing that needed forgiving, but Elena could no longer run from the fact that something was going on with her. She might not have betrayed Stefan last night by letting Damon bite her, but her heart and her feelings had already betrayed him. Elena had not given Damon her blood because she owed him, but because she cared about him, in a different way than you should care about your boyfriend's brother. It didn't exactly help when he literally put his life on the line to defend her. Hell, it didn't help when he stood there all shirtless and unconscionably well-defined.

As she watched, Damon brought his wrist to his own mouth and bit decisively into the flesh. Blood welled on the nicked skin.

'You need to heal those bite marks,' Damon told her, his tone brooking no argument, 'and that pretty face. Bonnie will think I'm beating you, and I so don't need _that_ beef.'

Graphic and disturbing images of the first time she'd had Damon's blood in her mouth– while he had held her hostage and threatened to turn her, then forced her to ingest enough vampire blood to scare Stefan into handing over that damn journal - replayed in Elena's head. Something must have shown on her face because, as Damon brought his wrist to her mouth, he spoke soothingly to dispel her fear. 'I know- I'm sorry about last time. This isn't like that. You don't _have_ to.' There were a hundred reasons for Elena to back away, but she surprised herself by acquiescing without a word of protest. After all, she could hardly wander around town, or see Jeremy or her friends, with a mangled wrist, purpling face and a suspicious looking wound on her neck.

Elena parted her lips and let Damon press his wet wrist against them, experimentally sticking her tongue out to taste the curious, rich vampire blood. Though she didn't exactly think she was in danger of becoming a blood addict, it was… _bearable_ to lap up a mouthful of tangy, viscous liquid. That was all it took for the fizzy sensation that signalled accelerated healing to start spreading. Elena's hand gripped Damon's as she moved his wrist away, and his fingers grasped at hers, tangling together. Almost afraid, she lifted her head to meet a gaze of pure, surging emotion.

Damon's head bent with inhuman precision and, after the barest of pauses, his mouth covered Elena's.

Damon hovered on the edge of the kiss, fully capturing Elena's mouth, warm and firm, but not taking it any further. He was waiting, Elena realised, to see how she would react.

Truthfully, Elena was having a more intense reaction to Damon's kiss than she would have thought possible a few weeks ago. Somehow, her hand had found its way to graze against the delicious stubble on Damon's cheek. Her whole body was straining to mould against his, and it would be so terribly, disastrously easy to part her lips, allow that luscious breath that she craved to mingle with hers, and just abandon herself to sheer lust. Elena wanted so badly to give in, and it nearly ripped her in half to try to hold back. She was with Stefan, and whatever cruel trick destiny was trying to play on her, she would _not_ allow history to repeat itself. One hundred and fifty years later and they were all still living out the consequences of Katherine's selfishness and gratuitous destruction of the brothers' bond. Elena would not be what Katherine was.

Racked with indecision, Elena hesitated for an infinitesimal moment, but it was long enough for Damon to notice. She knew without saying anything that he understood everything that had just gone through her mind. His practised lips pressed gently across her own once, twice more, before sliding away.

'What-' Elena asked breathily, trying to resist the impulse to lick her lips, 'what was that?'

Damon's eyes were catching a thousand colours in the light; as many colours, thought Elena, as there were different facets to this complicated man's personality.

'That was 'thank you'', Damon answered wryly, 'for saving my ass last night.' He didn't seem hurt by Elena's tacit rejection, and, strangely, Elena felt closer to him than ever, despite the potential for awkwardness here. Damon had actually fed from her and, despite or perhaps even because of the fraught circumstances of the bite, just remembering it made Elena almost heady again. Impulsively, Elena leaned over and kissed Damon's cheek, sweetly. He looked startled; Elena guessed it had been a while since anyone gave Damon a kiss that could remotely be counted as chaste, but he quickly smiled.

'And what was that?'

'That was 'thank you' for putting your ass in danger by coming to my rescue first,' she told him.

'Aw, aren't you cute as a button,' Damon smirked.

'Actually, I'm quite a bad-ass nowadays.'

Damon chuckled at that.

'Women. You stick one vampire with a syringe of vervain, and suddenly you think you're the second coming of Buffy Summers.'

'Well, I do already have the brooding vampire boyfriend and the best friend who's a witch,' Elena noted, arching one amused eyebrow at Damon.

'True. So if Stefan is Angel… oh, no. Am I _Spike_?'

'Well, you do have the century old bitchfest with Stefan going on. And, though at first you seem like evil incarnate, you _have_ actually batted for Team Good a few times now.'

'Huh. Then we're right on schedule to start a secret, sordid affair where I rock your world with it's-so-wrong-but-it's-so-so-good sex that makes you feel equal parts defiled and dazzled.'

'You know Buffy had to die before that happened, right? So, following this metaphor, I'm within my rights to say… over my dead body.'

Damon quirked a devilish smile.

'How about over _my_ dead body?' he suggested in a sex-filled, husky voice, leaning in close to Elena again, who did a tiny intake of breath before removing herself from Damon's personal space. Planting herself a few feet away from the vampire, with an upright wooden antique chair between them, Elena smiled nervously.

'Uh, while we're on the subject...'

'Of my dead, but very hot, body?'

Elena's face was set in a peculiar, almost defiant look.

'More like the defiled and dazzled part,' she admitted. Elena wasn't exactly thrilled about having to ask this, but it was awkward as hell having it hang between them while she didn't really understand what had happened. Girding herself, and reminding herself that she was an adult, Damon was (kind of) an adult, and there was nothing to be embarrassed about, Elena pressed on. 'About last night…'

'There was defiling last night?' Damon looked intrigued. 'Did I miss some defiling?'

'For Christ's sake, Damon, would you be serious for one minute?' Elena snapped. 'I'm trying to talk to you here!'

Damon immediately rearranged his face to one of penitence- a look that did not particularly sit well on his features, probably due to infrequent use.

'Sorry,' he said. 'Please, go on.'

Elena huffed and leaned forward on the high top of the chair she was standing behind. She twisted her hands around the rough wooden struts and ran her fingers over the ornate carvings there. After two attempts to get the sentence out, both timed resulting in her reclosing her mouth without having uttered a sound, she was pretty much at a loss as to how to start this conversation. Luckily, Damon chose this moment to have a flash of perceptivity, noticeable by the slight widening of his eyes and the soft chuckle on his lips.

'Is this about the blood-gasm?' he guessed. When Elena's cheeks darkened in mortification, he knew he was right. 'Are you mad because I stopped before you, you know...' He grinned suggestively.

'No!' Elena interrupted, hastily. 'God, no-'

'Good, because I thought it was for the best. I mean, I didn't think that's what you wanted, because of Stefan…'

'Yes, I mean… No, I didn't. That's, yes, that's um…' Elena took a deep breath to stop her stuttering and looked up into Damon's laughing eyes. Wryly, she bit her lip and smiled. 'Blood-gasm? Damon, that's disgusting.'

'I was trying to lighten the mood,' he said, softly, and reached out to rest a hand over Elena's, atop the chair back. 'Elena, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. You did a very brave thing, last night. You saved my life.'

'I'm not sorry I did it, Damon,' she answered, hesitantly. 'I just wasn't expecting… that. I thought it would hurt, and at first it _did_, but-'

'Sorry, I was too far gone to control myself.' Damon's crystal clear eyes were guilty. 'That must have scared you. To do what you did for me… Most people wouldn't have taken that risk. Elena, you…' Damon blinked away, and shook his head slightly, then brought his electric gaze back into full focus on Elena's coffee eyes. 'You're the best friend I've had in a lot of years. How could I not make it as good for you as I could?'

Maybe it was the dramatic events of the night taking a toll on Elena, but the petite brunette found herself slightly watery eyed at Damon's unexpected declaration. Unbidden, she squeezed his hand, when he returned the gesture, she realised that she really didn't feel embarrassed about this anymore. However, she was still curious.

'So, is it like that every time you feed from a human?'

'No,' Damon admitted. 'Drinking can be painful or pleasurable for the human. It depends what the vampires' intentions are, and how skilled they are in controlling the feed. Then there's the emotional factor. Drinking from someone who you feel an emotional connection to changes the experience. It's the same with vampire sex. For a pair with an emotional bond, biting during sex heightens everything, not just for the vamp but for the human as well. It's not just a selfish thing.'

'So, what I felt last night. That was because you wanted it to be good for me, you're a big talented vamp-ho, and, uh, we _like_ each other?' Elena reasoned aloud.

'Pretty much,' Damon confirmed.

'And you stopped before I, uh, finished, because you knew I'd feel like I betrayed Stefan if you turned me saving you into a sexual thing.'

'Do you wish I hadn't stopped?' Damon grinned. 'Hey, we can go again right now.'

'No,' Elena said, gently. 'I'm just kind of impressed that you actually respected me enough to bother to stop. It must have been tempting, in the circumstances…'

'Please. Like you're so irresistible. But seriously, that's why I didn't let you tell Stefan this morning. Elena, you did nothing wrong, but for vampires, when it comes to affairs of the heart, the whole blood thing is pretty closely related to the sex thing. Trust me, Stefan doesn't want to know about this, ever.'

Elena frowned.

'But Stefan wouldn't have wanted me to let you die,' she argued. 'And he wouldn't have wanted for it to hurt me when you fed from me.'

Damon nodded sagely. 'Yeah,' he dead-panned. 'Unfortunately, where the male ego is concerned, even for Saint Stefan, there can be no logic. Take my word for it: he won't like it. If you feel compelled by truth, honour and puppy dogs to come clean, wait until you're back in loverboy's arms where he can be assured you are tucked safely away from Big Bad Me.'

'Damon Salvatore, are you actually trying to give me relationship advice?' Elena questioned, incredulously. Damon removed his hand from Elena's smaller one and straightened up, looking a little put out.

'And on that note,' he said, 'I'm going out for breakfast.' He stretched his arms above his head warily, grimacing at the remaining tenderness, not noticing Elena's lustful gaze as his arm and shoulder muscles corded in sinful elegance.

Elena saw that he was walking at human speed as he crossed the house, heading for the stairs to his room. She trailed behind him, worried about his lack of energy.

'Wait,' she called, when Damon started up the main staircase. 'I don't think that's a good idea.'

'Relax,' Damon told her, pausing mid-stair to turn and give his housemate an easy smile. 'Francesca and her bionic boyfriend definitely don't have any anti-sun protection jewellery. You're safe during the daylight hours.'

'You don't think they'll leave town after last night?'

'Um, no, Elena. They're vampires. I realise you've had a slightly skewed education learning the subject from Stefi-pops, but _real_ vampires can be persistent little beggars. And I'd guess getting their asses handed to them by a human girl last night will have _really_ pissed them off.'

Elena's heart sank. It's not like she really had thought this was over, but hearing it so bluntly from Damon's mouth made it painfully clear they only had a few hours before it all started again. She was tired, and more than a little terrified. Thom had basically kicked Damon's ass last night, and they had both nearly died. How were they going to survive another night? Swallowing all of that down, she tried to get back to her original point.

'Well, that's not actually what I was talking about anyway. I meant that it's not a good idea for you to go out. No offence Damon, but you look like hell. And it's not exactly the prime time of day for trawling for a date. Isn't there someone you can call who'll come over here for you to, er, feed from?'

Damon looked quite amused.

'You suggesting I order in?' Elena flushed a little. 'I didn't think it was exactly best manners, with a roommate. Especially after last night.'

'Look, last night was one thing,' Elena said, carefully, not wanting to upset the delicate balance of their new friendship. 'But it was an emergency situation. I'm not your blood bank _or _your girlfriend, and a vampire's gotta eat, right?'

'Right,' Damon replied, a little coldly.

'And speaking of blood banks, don't you think it would be helpful to keep some emergency blood in the house?'

'I usually do,' Damon found himself saying defensively, as if he had to explain himself to a human girl. 'I just ran out last week and I haven't exactly had the time to commit grand larceny since my babysitting duties got considerably amped up.'

The words were mean to infuriate Elena, but Damon actually was angry at himself. For the first time in decades he had been worrying about someone else other than himself, and he'd forgotten to look after his own needs. It was plain stupid to have let his blood stock run out. Even though he preferred his blood freshly donated, and fed most often from a warm human body, there were times when it was necessary to use an emergency bag of blood. Last night, for instance, might have been a whole lot less messy. Not that, in truth, Damon would willingly trade the amazing experience of Elena's sweet blood filling his mouth, slicking down his throat while her soft, warm body writhed helplessly in his arms. He hadn't meant to hit her with quite so much of the pleasure whammy, but as soon as he had tasted her Damon was completely bewitched. His need for her translated down the blood connection and incited an uncontrollable energy between them that had almost made Damon forget what was really happening. As soon as he did though, he had seized onto that moment of clarity and, just short of ravishing his brother's girlfriend, managed to pull away. The taste of Elena's blood mingled with the heady scent of her arousal had been damn near overpowering, but he knew it wasn't real. Her sexy little whimpers and pleas, the way she was trying to invade his body; it was all a response to what he was projecting to her as he drank. As much as Damon wanted her, his unquellable ego also wanted Elena to want _him_. And that would never happen if she hated him for taking advantage of her, after she had made herself more than vulnerable to him, risked even her own life, to give him blood, to heal him.

'Speaking of babysitting duties,' Elena said, apparently unperturbed by Damon's rudeness 'I'm going to check that Jeremy actually made it to school today.'

'Anna was watching him. He'll be fine.'

'I know. I just… feel like seeing my little brother for a minute. I should put in an appearance at school too. Let Bonnie and Caroline know I'm alive. Uh,' Elena glanced over her shoulder at the messy hallway and living room behind her, 'you need help clearing that lot up before I go?'

Damon surveyed the disaster zone of with a cool eye.

'Nah. I can always compel whatever chick I call over here to clean it up.'

'Oh, great,' Elena said, heavy on the sarcasm, but not really caring enough to mount any serious objection. 'Then I'm just gonna shower and run. I'm probably already too late for homeroom.'

'Gee, wouldn't want that.'

'Damon, what the hell are we going to do?' Elena blurted out, suddenly unable to keep up the cheery everything-is-normal banter, when she was feeling like every passing second of sunlight brought them both closer to death. She slumped down onto a lower step of the staircase and wasn't surprised when Damon sat down next to her. His strong, still shirtless arm wrapped comfortingly around her shoulder and she leaned into his chest, hearing the same strange, slow heart beat that had once weirded her out in Stefan.

'You are going to go to school,' Damon said. 'I am going to get my strength back, then meet with Anna and make some decisions about how exactly we're going to kill Francesca and Thom. Elena,' Damon grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back so he could look into her eyes, 'I promise you, they are not going to hurt you again. I won't let that happen.'

'Okay,' Elena murmured. It made no sense, but somehow she believed Damon. 'I trust you, Damon. Really trust you, I mean. I know I said it had to come with time, and then less than a day later I told you I trusted you about Anna not hurting Jeremy. I meant it then, and I really, honestly mean it now.' Elena wasn't sure exactly why she felt the need to reassure Damon on this point, and right now, but it seemed important somehow. Like, going through all of this together, the one thing they needed to remember was that they were a team, and they had each other's back. Elena knew there were a lot of unresolved feelings between Damon and her, and she couldn't tell him what he wanted to hear about most of them. But her trust was the one thing she _could_ give Damon, and it suddenly meant everything to her that he understand that, that he believe their friendship was real.

In her earnest endeavour to convince Damon of this fact she had unwittingly moved so close to the vampire that she was practically in his lap. Elena could feel his cool breath against her cheek, and she instinctively reached out to brush a tangled wave of Damon's hair back off his forehead. Great. Now she was fighting the impulse to lock lips with him again. The kiss that she had not allowed to develop earlier was playing and replaying on her mind.

'Okay,' Elena said, more to herself than to Damon, and with some determination she slid out of Damon's embrace, standing upright on the stairs. 'I'm going for that shower. Your vampire blood may have healed my bruises but I'm still caked in dried blood and God knows what, and I think I smell.' Elena wrinkled her nose delicately.

'Yeah, little bit,' Damon concurred.

'Gee, thanks.'

'After school, I think it's best if you take Jeremy back to your house,' Damon said, stretching backwards to lay down across the steps. 'I need Anna with us, so if we leave Jeremy with his friends he'll be unprotected. I don't think Francesca and Thom would go after him, but I don't want to underestimate them again. This way, we can all stay together.' Elena wholeheartedly agreed.

'What shall I tell him?'

'Nothing, for now. It's family night today, right? Just tell him you want him home for it and that Anna and I are joining you. If it comes to it, we may have to cross the whole yeah-vampires-exist bridge later on.'

Elena smiled a little, liking the way Damon said 'we'.

'Family night, eh?'

'Er, yeah,' Damon said, giving her a look that implied _she_was the weird one. 'Haven't you heard? It's what I do. And I do do it well.'

'You cooking?'

'Unless you were planning on serving ice-cream sundaes for dinner…'

'Wow you _are_ domesticated. You're like a house vampire now.'

'Watch it, oh annoying small one,' the vampire growled.

'I'm so glad Thom missed when he tried to ram that tree branch through your heart.'

Damon smirked as Elena ran lightly up the stairs to get ready for school, but in truth he was pretty worried about the whole situation. There was no way Thom had missed his heart by accident. For Christ's sake, with a stake that big it was pretty damn skilled to avoid the heart at all. Damon and Elena had wounded Thom the worst way possible: by hurting Francesca, his mate of who knew how many centuries. If Damon's gut instinct was anything to go by, the big vampire had let them both go last night for one reason only. Thom wanted his revenge to be up close, personal and much, much slower than a stake through the heart.

**TBC...**

**A/N: Is anybody reading Thomas Galvin's hilarious recaps of TVD on his blogsite? If you haven't yet, do hop across and have a look- just not while you're drinking a milkshake or anything else liable to be snorted out of your nose….**


	11. Chapter 11

**Overprotective**

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show.

_**A/N: Hi. I'm writing again. If anybody's still reading, I hope you enjoy the new part of this (now extremely outdated) story.**_

**Part 11**

The text from Jeremy had said he would meet her after his last period science class, but Elena arrived outside the lab five minutes early, just to make sure he didn't try to escape without her. The sudden appearance of a tiny, brunette vampire at her side nearly made Elena jump out of her skin. The hallway at Mystic Falls High School was quiet, save a few milling seniors who, like Elena, had a free last period. Even so, Anna's arrival was spookily silent, proved by the tiny squeak of surprise from her unsuspecting target.

'Hi, Elena,' Anna said with a faint smile, as she waited for the human girl's heart rate to calm back down. 'How's it going?'

Amazed, Elena stared at her.

'How's it…?' she trailed off. 'Well, let's see. My boyfriend is off traipsing around Europe, actually trying to _find_ probably the scariest vampires in existence, to try and convince them that he and Damon are not responsible for whatever Katherine and Klaus are about to kick off. There's a couple of crazy vampires who want to keep me as their pet, because I look like their old playmate, before they either turn me or kill me. Damon literally nearly bled to death in my arms last night, trying to protect me from them. Oh, yeah, and I'm supposed to trust the girl who kidnapped me and my best friend to protect my little brother, who, incidentally, she previously tried to _feed_ to her vampire mother. It's going _great_, Anna,' Elena finished, heavy on the sarcasm. 'How about you?'

Anna arched one tidy dark eyebrow, and pushed herself away from the lockers she had leaned against.

'You know, not bad,' she replied. After a minute, she slid a sideways glance in Elena's direction. 'I spent most of the day with Damon. He's fully recovered, you know.' She spoke the words as if she was somehow doing Elena a favour, catching Elena's eye meaningfully, but the human girl was at least a couple of weeks past caring enough to try to figure out vampire mind games.

The final bell suddenly shrilled out, and Elena watched as Anna's whole demeanour suddenly changed. It was scary as hell how she could morph from a confident, quite terrifying, age-old vampire into a shy, kooky fifteen year old girl in the blink of an eye. Elena was more than a little pissed that Anna had used this whole act to manipulate Jeremy, right under Elena's nose. Seriously. Did she have to start questioning if every single person that befriended any of her family was a vampire with dishonourable intentions? Kids started filing out of the classrooms, filling the hallway instantly with noise and chatter.

'Jeremy hasn't seen me yet,' Anna murmured in Elena's ear. 'I've been watching over him discreetly. He doesn't know I'm back in town. Give me a minute, okay?' So, as Jeremy, jeans and dark hoodie clad and with the relaxed gait of the blissfully unaware, strolled out of the science room door, it was Anna who went to meet him, while Elena watched uncomfortably on.

Elena could not ignore the way Jeremy's eyes lit up when he saw Anna. The tiny vampire grinned up at him and grasped at his arms, giggling when Elena's brother affectionately brushed her hair back off her face. They turned so that Elena couldn't see Jeremy's face, but he was obviously nodding and accepting whatever explanation Anna was giving him for being back in Mystic Falls. The funny thing was that, watching Anna's face and dancing eyes as she sweet-talked Jeremy, Elena nearly forgot that it was all a lie. It seemed too awkward to intrude on their moment together.

Shortly, Anna's eyes found Elena's and an almost imperceptible nod of her head called Elena over to them.

'Hey, Jer,' Elena greeted her brother with false cheer, as she rounded on the couple. 'Ready to go? Family night awaits no stragglers…'

Jeremy blinked as he noticed his sister's arrival. Radiating happiness, he slung an arm around Anna's shoulder.

'Elena, you remember Anna, right?' He didn't wait for the small, awkward nod that Elena aimed in Anna's direction, while the little vampire grinned easily. 'She's just got back into town, for a visit. Do you mind if I take a raincheck on dinner tonight?'

Elena's eyes widened, but Anna took control of the situation smoothly.

'Hey, it's okay if you already have plans,' she said, smiling through thick eyelashes at Jeremy. 'I don't want to ruin your family night.' The last was said with a pointed glance at Elena, who, belatedly, got the hint.

'Um, it's no problem. Why don't you join us, Anna?' Elena asked, a little weakly.

Jeremy pulled a face and looked as if he would object, but Anna cut him off at the pass.

'Really? Are you sure you wouldn't mind? I don't want to intrude…' She looked at Jeremy, as if for assurance, biting her lip like a nervous teenage girl. Inwardly, Elena rolled her eyes. Outwardly, she got into the part.

'It's totally fine,' she assured Anna, speaking more warmly and nodding convincingly at Jeremy, who merely shrugged his acquiesce. 'Our aunt is out of town, and my, er, friend Damon will be there anyway. The more the merrier, right?'

'Damon's gonna be there?' Jeremy said, brightening up again. Just perfect, Elena thought. An angsty fifteen year old, who already has a sweet little vampire girlfriend, developing a case of hero-worship for another bloodsucker.

'Yeah. Something about wanting a rematch on _Halo_?' Elena said, humouring him. Jeremy chuckled.

'Is he cooking again?'

Elena frowned, wondering when everyone had forgotten that she was actually a pretty good cook herself. God, one decent pasta sauce from Damon and the last year of Elena saving Jeremy from Jenna's ill-fated culinary attempts were forgotten. She was about to answer when she noticed the amused expression on Anna's face, and realised how weird this conversation must sound. Unfairly too, since the last time Damon had been at family night it had definitely not been with Elena's approval, and he had only been trying to unnerve her so he could question her on Stefan's loyalties. Sighing inwardly, Elena reminded herself that she didn't care what the hell Anna thought in any case. As for loyalties? That wasn't something she wanted to think about at all. For tonight, it was enough to find a way to keep them all alive.

'Yeah, maybe we'll let him,' Elena answered, and shepherded them towards the exit.

:::

'So?' Elena hissed, as soon as she could grab a private moment with Damon. Anna and Jeremy were in living room; Anna's pretty giggles were drifting through the house over the low background hum of VH1, and Jeremy hadn't stopped smiling all afternoon.

'So... what?' Damon asked, grinning up at Elena even as the knife in his hand rapidly dissected an eggplant. Distracted for a second, Elena huffed.

'Would you look at what you're doing there?' She indicated to the knife with a flutter of her hand. 'You may have super healing powers, but I don't want your blood getting in the food.'

Damon raised an amused eyebrow, and Elena blushed cherry red at the remembrance of tasting Damon's blood, of the feel of his skin slick under her mouth, this morning. Breathing hard, she reminded herself she had only done it out of necessity. It wasn't like she had enjoyed it or anything. Not like she _ever_ wanted to do it again... No.

'I kind of thought you _liked_-' he began, only to be cut off by an exasperated Elena.

'Let's not go there, Damon,' she pleaded. 'Just tell me where we stand with the whole Francesca and Thom situation. I've been on tenterhooks all day.'

Damon's smile faded into a dangerous looking borderline snarl. Even in the brightly lit Gilbert kitchen, dressed in a grey Henley shirt and currently layering slices of eggplant and tomato into a baking dish, his transformation into a predatory creature of the night was impressive. Elena shivered at the sudden feral shine in Damon's eyes and, perhaps sensing her reaction, the vampire's face automatically rearranged into a more human expression. Features set in hard lines, he set the food aside and leaned over the counter top, towards where Elena pressed against the opposite side.

'Honestly?'

'Of course.'

'We're nowhere good,' he admitted, holding Elena's gaze seriously. Although the fear sat like a stone boulder in her stomach, Elena was glad that Damon was being upfront with her, not treating her like a child or some fragile thing he had to hide the ugly truth from. 'Anna and I checked out every likely hideout in town, and then some,' Damon continued. 'I was hoping, if we could find where they were staying, we could deal with them today-'

'While Francesca is still weakened from the vervain I stuck her with.'

'That, and,' Damon's face twisted unpleasantly, 'while we had the advantage of daylight. Thom and Francesca have to protect themselves from the sun. That means they are essentially trapped during the day. If I knew where the hell they were holed up, I'd have set the damn place on fire with them inside it.'

'Which is exactly why Thom will have made sure he found somewhere safe to hide while Francesca recuperates,' Elena noted with an unhappy sigh. Then, she brightened. 'Maybe they left-'

'Elena, no, there's no way,' Damon said, gently.

The oven reached the programmed temperature and beeped, prompting Elena to reach for the ceramic dish at Damon's elbow and cross the kitchen to the oven. She slid the eggplant parmigiana onto the middle shelf and straightened up, tensing when she realised that Damon was right behind her. His hand caught her elbow, gently spinning her round to face him, too fast and too much in her personal space.

'We _do _have a plan,' he confided, quietly, dark lashed fluttering as his face squeezed into a brief frown. 'You're not going to like it, but I need you to trust me. I won't let anything bad happen to you or your brother.' Damon's focus was trained so intently on her face, flickering like he was searching for something behind her tired eyes. If she couldn't have felt the cool metal of her vervain pendant against her breastbone, Elena would have sworn he was compelling her.

'Why am I not going to like it?' she questioned, warily.

:::

By the time the sun began to set an hour later, Damon was helping Jeremy with the washing up in the kitchen, and Elena slipped upstairs to her bedroom to grab a sweater. At the closet door, she paused for a moment, bracing herself on the furniture as she allowed herself to catch a breath ahead of what was about to come.

'So, are you and Damon a _thing_ now?' Elena jumped nearly out of her skin, not having heard Anna follow her upstairs, and glared at the tiny, black-haired vampire as she turned.

'It's rude to sneak up on people in their own home,' she snapped, 'and no. Not that it's any of your business, but I'm with Stefan.'

'Yeah, looks like it,' Anna snorted, and Elena felt her face flame.

'Damon's been a really good friend to me,' Elena insisted. 'He's saved my life-'

'And why do you think he's done that?'

Elena hesitated.

'He promised Stefan...'

'Yeah,' Anna smirked. 'Damon's putting life and limb at risk for you because it means such a lot to his _brother_. Forgive me, Elena, but you can't really be this dumb. I've seen this show before, and the one girl, two brothers thing never ends well. Especially for the Salvatore's.'

Shaking her head, embarrassed, Elena sunk down to sit on her bed.

'That's not what I'm trying to do,' she said, quietly. 'I'd rather die than treat them the way Katherine did. I _love _Stefan.'

'I know,' Anna replied, without malice. She hovered motionless in the middle of the floor, but her eyes softened a little as they met Elena's. 'I _do_ believe you aren't doing this on purpose. It's like Stefan and Damon are cursed in love, maybe because you look exactly like Katherine... There's not much good to say about Katherine Pearce, but believe it or not I don't think she meant to get caught between the brothers like that, either.'

'You think she really loved both of them?'

'Maybe,' Anna tilted her head, considering. 'Maybe she never loved either of them. Who knows what was going through Katherine's head. She came to Mystic Falls to do Klaus' dirty work, and ended up obsessed with two human boys. Nearly cost her everything. Hell, your town's whole history is the legacy of the fallout from that love triangle.' She shot a warning look at Elena. 'Do you really want to put Damon through it all again?'

'I'm not,' Elena stuttered to her own defence. 'It's not like that between Damon and me. He knows I'm in love with Stefan.'

'Well, sure, honey. But he also knows from past experience that doesn't mean you can't be in love with _him_ as well.'

'No,' Elena shook her head firmly. Okay, so she and Damon had been having a few _moments_ over the past days, and yes, there was a certain undeniable... chemistry between them. Damon flirted a lot, and made her laugh a lot, and they'd actually had a pretty fun week living together. And sometimes when he looked at her, it made her breath catch and her stomach turn to molasses. Elena certainly felt _something_ for Damon, and she was sure his feelings for her were more than he'd had for any other human in a hell of a long time, but still. Anna was blowing this out of all proportion. Damon knew that Stefan was coming home- a thought that was exciting suspiciously conflicted emotions in Elena now- and, whatever happened, Damon knew that she wasn't going to break Stefan's heart because of some indefinable _understanding_ between two completely incompatible people. If anything, Damon would scoff at the idea. Being pretty much the _only_ friend Damon had made Elena the focus of every positive, caring instinct he deigned to feel. That wasn't the same as him actually falling for her in any serious way. Honestly, Elena was positive that if she actually called Damon's bluff and slept with the vampire, he'd be over her and moving on before she got her panties back on.

Feeling calmer now, Elena turned her attention back to Anna. 'No,' she said again, more forcefully. 'Damon's drawn to me because I look like the woman he loved, and because he's one of my best friends. He doesn't feel that way about me, though. And he knows I don't feel that way about him. Stefan is the one I love. All I can ask for is that, when he comes home, those two can really mend their relationship and be brothers again. Damon's changed so much, and I know he cares about Stefan. He wouldn't hurt him, not now.'

A slight movement drew Elena's eye for a second, over Anna's shoulder. Damon was standing in the doorway, his eyes dark and impossible to read. Elena's heart thudded painfully in her chest, and she found herself wondering how much of the conversation he had heard. Not that it should matter, she told herself. She had only been saying the truth. Still, something ached uncomfortably in her gut, twisting worse at the sight of Anna's knowing smile as she followed Elena's gaze to the source of the human girl's consternation. When he spoke though, Damon seemed untroubled as ever.

'Jeremy's got this Wii thing all set up,' he said, expressionless. 'You two ready?'

'We'll be down in a minute,' Anna answered for the both of them, Elena nodding weakly as she shrugged the sweater over her shoulders. As Damon disappeared again, Elena sighed and glanced up at Anna.

'Why do you even care about all of this, anyway?'

Anna shrugged, running a hand through her dark locks, separating the curls out with her fingers.

'I don't,' she replied. 'Not about the Salvatore's, I mean. They've been at the root of enough trouble in mine and my Mom's lives. Let's just say I've got a bit of a vested interest in your family now, though.'

Elena started at the frank admission. 'You mean Jeremy?' she inquired, baldly.

'Yeah,' Anna said, eyes hardening in defiance. 'I lived through the Katherine saga. I don't want that kind of shit to hit the fan again. Not with Jeremy around to get caught in the crossfire.'

Elena stared, blinked a few times, slowly coming to a realisation.

'You really care about him, don't you?'

Anna met her eyes calmly. 'Yes.'

'And he feels the same way?'

'I don't know,' Anna looked almost shy and Elena wanted to laugh when she recognised the pink flush across the vampire's face. 'I think so.'

Elena considered for a moment, before saying, 'I think so, too.' Anna looked surprised, as if she hadn't thought Elena would have anything nice to say on the subject. 'Look, I know it's hypocritical, given my involvement with Stefan, but I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea of my little brother dating a vampire,' Elena confessed. 'Still, it's nice to see him smiling for a change. To be honest, I haven't seen a lot of that since... someone he cared about disappeared.'

'You mean Vicki?'

'He told you about her?'

'No. But it wasn't difficult to hear about in a town this size. Jeremy loved her.' Anna's attempted smile turned into a painful grimace. 'Do you think she'll be coming back?' The way Anna was looking at her made Elena sure that was a loaded question.

'Definitely not,' Elena said, keeping her voice as blank as possible, but her gaze meaningful. 'Ever.' Anna nodded, relieved, which perhaps wasn't the reaction Elena ideally wanted to see.

'I thought that might be the case,' Anna murmured, mostly to herself, before shaking her head and seeming to snap back into the moment. 'So, you're okay with this? Me and Jeremy?'

'I'm okay with anything that makes him happy and keeps him safe,' Elena was careful in her answer. 'But he's barely sixteen and he's an emotional wreck. I don't want anything else to hurt him and I worry that finding out about vampires, about who you really are, would be too much for him right now.'

'I don't like lying to him,' Anna said, emphatically.

'Me neither.'

'I- It's for the best though.'

'At least for a while.' The girls smiled at each other, Anna warm and Elena hopeful.

'Can I say something as... a friend?' Anna asked. Elena nodded, wrinkled her brow. 'I think you're wrong about Damon,' Anna said, seriously. 'I've known him a long time and I'm not playing games when I tell you that boy is in love with you. Just be careful, okay? I hope you know what you're doing.'

With that, Elena was once again alone in her bedroom, alone with her thoughts and... Yeah. Elena hoped she knew what she was doing as well, because, quite frankly, she'd never felt more out of control in her life. The scary thing was... Well, how scary it _wasn't._ Because Elena was sure that her heart wasn't supposed to skip a beat at the suggestion of her boyfriend's brother being in love with her. She was sure she wasn't supposed to wish, deep in her bones, with a bitter-sweet pang of desire, that it was true.

After a moment's hesitation, Elena guiltily waved goodbye to the moral high ground, and dialled Bonnie on her cell to ask a really strange favour.

:::

Forty minutes into their first mission on _Ghost Squad, _which both vampires had thrown themselves into with a little too much glee, systematically gunning down their supernatural brethrin on the screen, Bonnie knocked on the Gilbert's front door.

'Bonnie!' Elena said, aghast, when she saw her friend on the porch. Glancing around at the apparently empty street, she pulled Bonnie quickly into the house and locked the front door behind them. 'You weren't supposed to come over! I told you there's some stuff going on here tonight.'

'Are you kidding me?' Bonnie replied, raising an eyebrow. 'After what you said to me on the phone earlier, there's no way we aren't having this conversation face to face.'

'It's not safe,' Elena said, sighing unhappily and glancing unconsciously through the doorway to where Damon, Jeremy and Anna were playing on without her. 'I'm going upstairs to talk to Bonnie,' she called through to them, although she knew Damon and Anna would both have heard just fine even if she'd whispered.

Grabbing Bonnie by the arm, she dragged her best friend into her bedroom, through into the adjoining bathroom she shared with Jeremy, locked both doors and switched the shower on full pelt. Hopefully that would keep their conversation relatively private from the supernaturally enhanced flapping ears downstairs.

'What the hell is going on, Elena?' Bonnie demanded, recognising the same tricks they'd used when Anna and the terminally-stupid, recently deceased Ben had kidnapped them all those months ago.

'Damon and Anna are downstairs,' Elena said, softly.

'Riiiight,' Bonnie drawled, in amazement. 'We're having vampire dinner parties now, are we then?'

'No,' Elena shifted uncomfortably. 'Look, I know what Anna did before was horrible. I'm not saying I've forgiven her, but she did it all to save her mother's life, Bonnie. She and Jeremy have grown close, and-'

'You're letting Jeremy date a _vampire_?'

'I don't _let_ Jeremy do anything. He's nearly sixteen and I'm not his mom.'

'He's your kid brother.'

'C'mon, it would be pretty freaking hypocritical of me to get up in his face for falling for a vampire, wouldn't it?'

Bonnie shook her head, like she couldn't believe Elena was being so dumb.

'Elena, that boy has no idea what he's getting himself into,' she said, seriously. 'It's totally different. I mean, I think you've lost the plot getting yourself involved with the Salvatore's, now you know what they are, but at least you can make an informed decision.'

Elena leaned on the shower door and couldn't help the guilty expression that crossed her face. Bonnie was right, of course. It wasn't fair to keep Jeremy in the dark, to watch him fall for Anna with no idea who or what she really was. Yet, after all her brother had been through since their parent's accident, she couldn't bear to drag him into this world that she herself had wandered into. A world where there were very real, very scary things hiding in plain sight, right under their noses. Anna could help protect Jeremy from all that, at least until this thing with Francesca and Thom was done. Beyond that? Elena didn't have a clue what the right answer was.

Luckily for Elena's conflict addled brain, Bonnie didn't seem to require a response, ploughing straight on into the main reason for her visit.

'And don't even get me started on Damon,' Bonnie said. Her wide brown eyes were brimming with concern, though the determined set of the young witch's mouth told Elena she should be prepared for some tough love. 'Elena, what the hell are you thinking?'

Elena shot her friend a beseeching look.

'Did you bring what I asked for?'

Rolling her eyes, Bonnie slid the strap of her satchel off her shoulder, and toed it across the floor towards Elena.

'It's all in there,' she said, voice heavy with warning. 'Of course, I'm still not sure if I want to help you with this.'

'Please, Bon-'

'Just,' Bonnie held up a hand, palm forward and briefly squeezed her eyes shut, 'tell me you've thought this through. I mean, _really_ thought this through Elena. First you can't stand the guy, you _know _what he did to Caroline, and then you're moving in with him while Stefan's away. And now, what? You ring me up and ask me to make you a spell to find out how Damon really feels about you? This is messed up, Elena. Just sayin'.'

'I know it sounds weird,' Elena admitted, picking up the bag Bonnie had discarded on the floor between them, and holding it to her like something precious. It was open, and several tiny glass bottles clinked together as she moved it; a waft of scented candle wax drifted up to her nose. 'I know you think I'm an awful person, and I can't really explain it. Just- I... God, Bonnie.' Elena moved closer to the other girl and spoke earnestly, hoping years of friendship would pave a way for Bonnie to somehow understand this.

'Ever since I met Damon there's been something between us. I can't put it into words, and I've tried to ignore it, but I _can't_. It's like something ties us together and I have to know, I _need _to know what it is.'

'Can't you just ask him? Mixing magic and affairs of the heart? Not traditionally a winner, babes.'

Elena almost smiled at that.

'I know right? So you see how desperate I am?' Bonnie pulled a face, relenting when Elena grabbed her hand. 'This thing with Katherine and the brothers' feud: it's too complicated. I doubt Damon even knows whether anything he feels for me is really about me, or some twisted sort of transference from Katherine. Bonnie, I have to know. You get that, right?'

'Yes,' Bonnie said, grudgingly conceding Elena's point. 'But what about Stefan? Have you thought about what this means for you two? If you know the truth about Damon's feelings for you, what's going to change? You're still with his brother. Could you really hurt Stefan like that?'

Elena's eyes closed in very real pain. Bonnie pulled Elena into her side, releasing their entwined hands to wrap an arm around her friend's shoulder, as Elena rested her head on Bonnie's shoulder.

'I love Stefan,' Elena said, so quietly Bonnie had to strain to hear her over the running water. 'The last thing I want to do is hurt him, ever. I don't want to be one more thing between him and his brother. But, whatever this connection is between me and Damon, I literally can't walk away. It's like watching a car crash in motion.

'I love Stefan for all the right reasons: he's good, and kind, and supportive. Damon's... not. Damon's selfish, and self-absorbed and dangerous. He's done things, things I can't even think about. It doesn't matter though; I can't stop thinking about him. Christ, he makes me so mad, sometimes I want to kill him, but... When I'm with him, it's the only time in _forever_ I've felt really alive, and free, and, just, _me._ He's saved my life, Bonnie. More than that, he's saved something else inside me. Some part of me I thought I'd lost when Mom and Dad died.' Elena gave a small embarrassed laugh. 'God, I sound like a bad romance novel.'

'No,' Bonnie said, softly. 'You just... Are you in love with him?'

'I don't know,' Elena said, shuddering. 'I'm just saying, there's _something_ between us. I need to know what I mean to him. I need you to help me, Bonnie.'

Bonnie's eyes glazed over, as if she was lost in deep thought, but then she shook her head with a small, rueful smile, and pulled Elena into a proper hug.

'Like I could ever say no to you,' she said, 'even if you _are_ crazy.' Releasing Elena, she started pulling the items out of her bag and arranging them on the bathroom counter. 'He's way too old for you, you know.'

Elena grinned weakly.

'Shut up, bitch.'

'Whatever. You're damn lucky your best friend is a crazy-talented witch. So, I need some of your hair?' Bonnie held her hand out expectantly until Elena placed a freshly snipped lock into her hand. 'Thanks.' Elena watched as Bonnie arranged the candles and vials of different coloured liquids, herbs and what looked like some sort of crushed bugs.

'Do I even want to ask?'

'So very much _no_,' Bonnie replied with a grin. 'Okay. So, this is actually pretty simple. Pass me the grimoire?'

Elena dutifully retrieved the old, thin book from Bonnie's bag and handed it to her.

'Right. You've got something of Damon's?' With a look of distaste, Bonnie took the clearly unwashed t-shirt Elena passed her, smirked at the blush staining Elena's cheeks, and placed the t-shirt on top of the pestle she had mixed all the other spell ingredients in, before setting it all neatly in the base of the wash basin. Some funny smelling candles and a whole bunch of ancient sounding chanting later, Bonnie grinned at Elena. 'Hope you weren't too attached to that shirt,' she said, as she motioned with her hand and set the whole lot on fire. God, it still creeped Elena out when Bonnie set things on fire with her mind.

'That's it?' Elena said doubtfully, watching the purple haze dispersing above the tiny flames.

'Yep,' Bonnie said. 'The spell will work sometime in the next twenty-four hours. You'll find out how Damon really feels about you; specifically, whether it's you or Katherine in his heart. You'll know when it's working, cos you'll see that purple glowy thing again.'

'Okay. Uh, thanks.' This was a _good_ thing, Elena reminded herself. One way or another, by this time tomorrow, she'd know for sure whether Damon really saw _her_, or if it had always been Katherine. Just what on God's green earth she was going to do with that information, she had no idea. Probably break her heart.

'No problem,' Bonnie pulled a sarcastic face. 'Now, what the hell kind of trouble are you guys are in that you didn't want me to come over here tonight?'

:::

'So, tell me again how walking through the outskirts of town in the early hours of the morning, doing a darn good impression of vampire bait, constitutes a _good plan_?' Elena whispered under her breath close enough to Damon's ear that she tasted his skin.

'Be cool, baby,' Damon teased her. His arm was wrapped tightly around her shoulders and was holding her snug to his side so, to any passerby, they would just look like a couple walking home after a late night. Damon shifted against her with practised ease, until they were entwined so spectacularly that Elena was impressed they were managing to walk upright. She attributed it to his superior vampire balance, since it seemed well beyond the capabilities of her own awkward limbs.

'You're perfect vampire bait. You're delicious.' Damon didn't bother to disguise the sensual appreciation in his voice, and Elena shivered involuntarily. It wasn't fair how Damon's voice alone could shoot straight through her central nervous system. She concentrated on keeping her voice steady, and low enough that even nearby vampire's couldn't overhear.

'Great, Damon. Except for how I didn't envision this master plan involving anyone else _drinking my blood_.'

'No-one's going to be drinking anyone's blood,' Damon drawled, rolling his eyes. 'Well. No-one's going to be drinking _your_ blood. I can't make any promises about Thom and Frannie.'

Elena shifted her head to glance at him in surprise.

'Can you drink another vampire's blood?'

'Oh yeah,' Damon replied. 'It doesn't do you any good, nutritionally speaking, but non-consensual vampire on vampire blood-sucking after we fight is a totally primal way of humiliating the loser and asserting your dominance.' His fingers dug warmly into her shoulder. 'Totally different from consensual drinking, of course. There's certain situations where _that_ is very pleasurable indeed.'

'Right. During sex.' Elena said, aiming for blasé.

'Well, yeah,' Damon smirked. 'Let's just say it enhances things, whether vampire on vampire, or vampire on human, action. I can't believe Saint Stefan has shown such restraint all this time you two have been getting hot and sweaty together. Though I suppose it shouldn't surprise me; it _is _my brother we're talking about. We're probably talking luke-warm and mildly clammy, right?'

'Not that it's any of your business, but Stefan has nothing to be ashamed of in that department,' Elena said. While she definitely didn't want to get drawn into a conversation about her and Stefan's sex life, she wasn't going to stand by silently while Damon slandered her boyfriend's skills in the bedroom. She wasn't lying either: Stefan was tender with her, and sex with him was always a great combination of hot and playful. She felt comfortable enough with him to relax and let go, and, even if they hadn't done anything you could class as crazy or adventurous yet, Elena knew the sex was good for both of them.

'You only think that because you don't have anything to compare the experience to,' Damon said, with a wicked grin that Elena immediately wanted to wipe off his face.

'That's not true,' she said, hotly. 'I- I wasn't a virgin when I first slept with Stefan you know.' If possible, Damon's grin widened.

'Oh, baby, I don't think Mutt- sorry- _Matt_ Donovan even counts in this category.' Elena shot him a dark look, looked like she was about to say something, then bit her lip ad glared some more as Damon chuckled. 'In fact, Matt bore-a-thon Donovan is probably dull enough in the sack to make Stefan seem like a bonafide sex god. No wonder you've been disillusioned, you poor thing.'

'Damon, you are so far out of line,' Elena said, huffily. 'I love Stefan and I love having sex with Stefan.' And, okay, maybe now she was deliberately trying to hurt Damon, and that wasn't so nice of her, but dammit if Damon didn't bring out the devil in her like no-one else. '_Stefan_ knows _exactly_ what I want, and he always delivers.' She titled her chin smugly, tried not to flinch when her taunt hit home and Damon's eyes narrowed dangerously, that devilish smile twisting arrogantly on his lips.

'Elena, baby,' he said, voice thick with sex, stopping walking and crowding her into the shadows of the brick walled building they were passing. Elena shifted back away from him until her spine hit the brickwork, and there was nothing she could do to stop Damon drawing himself flush with her body, close enough that she could feel his body heat radiating all the way from head to toe, but not actually allowing his body to touch hers at any point. 'It's not about what you want. It's about what you don't even _know_ you want. What you _need_; what you'll never again be able to live without after you get one taste.'

Elena couldn't help the breathy moan that escaped her lips, as her body involuntarily flexed to try and press against Damon. The vampire expertly shifted away a bare centimetre, keeping that tiny but frustrating distance between them. 'It's about taking your lover so deep inside you that he's part of every cell, in your bones, in your bloodstream. So that all you can see, taste and feel is him. It's not about _fun_, Elena,' and, damn, had he been reading her mind? 'It's claiming what's yours. It's primal, and it's wild, and if you can still think clearly then you're doing it with the wrong person.'

Elena gasped quietly as Damon leaned forward, touching his forehead against the brick wall right next to her face. So unbearably close. Damon's cheek burned hot against hers- if they both turned their heads then, God, they would be kissing- and Elena was hyper-aware of the soft scratch of his five-o-clock shadow on her softer skin, his breathing, the vibration of the low, gravely growl he made when she twisted the hand trapped between their bodies to press the palm of her hand against the hard plane of his stomach.

'Not fair,' she said, almost too quietly for a human to hear.

'It's not fair he met you first,' Damon said, and there it was. There. It. Was. The first time either of them had admitted out loud how deep this poisonous thing between them had spread. This thing that could only hurt, never breed good. Elena felt like sobbing, felt like kissing Damon, felt like running because it was suddenly far too real and _dangerous_; standing on the edge of a precipice daring each other to jump.

'Remember how it felt the other night, when I had my hands on you, my teeth in your flesh?' Damon was still talking, husky-raw and smouldering at once. 'How connected we were? Do you remember how good that felt? Imagine if I was fucking you at the same time. You can't- You can't even imagine how hard you would come for me.'

Christ, if it was possible for Elena to be more turned on than she was at that precise point, she didn't know how. Damon's words were shooting straight to the damp heat between her legs and she had the distant concern that breathing was about to become a serious issue.

'Liar,' she managed to whisper, even if it came out more trembling than her dignity was strictly comfortable with. 'You expect me to believe it's like that every time you feed during sex?' Damon crooked his head, so his lips came to brush on the edge of her jaw, while Elena called on her last vestiges of willpower to keep from turning her lips onto his.

'It's like that with the one you love,' Damon said, simply.

...TBC


	12. Chapter 12

**Overprotective**

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show.

**Part 12**

'_It's like that with the one you love,' Damon said, simply. _

It was like a bucket of ice-cold water over Elena. Of course, she realised with a painful stab in her heart. He was talking about Katherine. She'd just stood there and let him tease her with memories of the fantastic raunchy sex he'd had with the vampire temptress who was the great love of his whole existence. What a fucking idiot she was.

Jerking her face away from Damon, she tried to cover her hurt with anger.

'Get off me.'

'What? What's wro-'

'Damon, get _off_ me.' Damon, looking a little disorientated, but still infuriatingly hot, backed off the irate human girl whip-swift. Elena stalked out of their shadowy hiding place and straight past him, her heeled boots clicking with each angry stride.

They were at their destination, Elena realised. This was quickly followed by a second, more irritating, understanding that Damon had used his sex talk to distract her from being afraid, long enough for them to get here, and then ratcheted it up enough for her to forget she was fang-bait. Master of fucking manipulation that he was.

Unthinking, she pushed through the loose chain link fence in front of her. The streetlamps barely cast a dull glow over here, and the old warehouse loomed at the edge of the lot, huge and shadowy. It hadn't been used since the last company renting it went bust two years before, and the building had already started to get that creepy, abandoned look about it; all dilapidated paintwork and boarded up windows. Yep, Elena thought bleakly, what a brilliant and no-at-all scary plan this was.

Damon was right at her back as Elena cut a path across the forecourt. She'd just about reached the edge of the building when she felt Damon's hand in the small of her back, a gentle pressure until she turned around to face him. Confusion momentarily overtook how pissed off she was, as Damon dragged her right up close to him and cupped her face in his hands, tilting down to brush his lips across her ear.

'Are you kidding-' Elena began to argue, but Damon's next words, whispered almost too softly to catch, right into the shell of her ear, sent chills through her.

'They're here.' As if he sensed Elena's sudden panic, Damon wrapped his arms tighter around her. 'Let's table this baffling argument for later, eh? We've got some vampires to kill.' Elena felt his smirk where Damon's face pressed into her hair. It was definitely possible Damon was looking forward to this a little bit too much.

'This plan sucks,' Elena bitched, eloquently.

'Aw, baby,' Damon said. 'This is my favourite part though. Time to kiss and make up.'

Then his lips were on hers, and Elena didn't really have time to remember how much she hated being vampire bait, how bitter she was about Damon's obvious feelings for Katherine, or even to remember that she was supposed to be putting on a show for Thom and Francesca, making it look like she and Damon were too distracted with each other to notice their arrival. To be fair, as soon as Damon's lips crushed onto hers, Elena could quite easily have been too distracted to notice Thom and Francesca dancing the cha-cha in front of them. There was no real heat behind the kiss- to give him due credit, Damon's mind was definitely focused on what was about to happen- but Elena couldn't help the way her body responded just to Damon's touch.

Damon's hands ran down Elena's back and stopped at her waist, gripping firmly and hoisting her up. Obligingly, Elena wrapped her legs around his waist, and the vampire easily carried her right inside the warehouse, a simple padlocked door not even putting him off his stride.

:::

They were barely into the building when Elena's brief fling with fantasy ended, the too-fast whoosh of air displacing around her making her stomach lurch as Damon moved them both at vamp speed to the far wall. The vampire was tense and alert as he pressed her to the solid bricks at her back, waiting for Elena to catch her breath again. Her eyes re-focused as she adjusted to the gloom of the old warehouse interior. Elena could see over Damon's shoulder across the expanse of the dirty empty room, even as he kept up the charade, pressing hot mouth to the delicate flesh of her shoulder and neck. She saw the imposing bulk of Thom appear in the doorway, Francesca's diminutive form following soon after to take place next to him. Elena didn't have to act in order to make her eyes widen in fear, or for her hands to clutch firmer at Damon's hard, unyielding body.

Just like that, Damon was suddenly in front of her, pulling her behind him as he faced the other vampires. He snarled, and the inhuman sound made Elena shiver with more than the chill of abandoned brick and stone. Francesca laughed that tinkling girly noise of hers, and stepped forward into the room.

'How fortunate to run into you both like this, so soon,' she said, with a joyful smile that made it seem for all the world she was talking to good friends. The vampire's cold, deadly eyes still made Elena's heart beat an unwelcome pattern. 'Thom and I hate to intrude on a lovers' tryst...' –the feral smirk on her taciturn mate's face belied any such discomfort— '...but I must admit we're delighted by the opportunity to finish last night's discussion.'

'Gosh, I almost feel bad,' Damon returned evenly, his incredibly cocky swagger ever present as he moved a few steps closer to the centre of the room. 'Seems rude to _dampen_ your enthusiasm, but...'

As Damon spoke his finger pointed nonchalantly upwards to the vast complex of exposed beams and old piping overhead, a small smile quirking on his lips. On cue, Thom's tall frame moved closer to Damon and the big, blond vampire looked up to where Damon gestured. The sprinkler system Damon and Anna had modified early that afternoon kicked in with a loud hiss, right over Thom's head, targeting his face and drenching him in seconds. As soon as it hit vampire flesh, the vervain-laced solution burned into the skin, melting and scarring as it went. Francesca, standing beside her mate, was quicker off the mark to protect herself, managing to keep her eyes shielded at the expense of her scalding hands. Thom was bellowing in agony, as his eyes melted into his face and the skin began to sizzle. Elena recoiled in horror from the sight, instinctively pulling Damon closer to the safety of the wall, far from the reach of the poison.

A dark blur in the doorway behind Francesca and Thom—the door Damon and Elena had burst through only minutes before—caught Elena's attention. Anna sped into the room, stopping sharply at the edge of the vervain shower and catching Damon's eye.

'So glad you could join us,' Damon greeted his tiny ally, with a tight smile. 'Frannie, Thom,' he called to the wounded vampires, 'I hope you don't mind, I've invited a friend to the party.' Even as he spoke, Anna raised her arms and Elena saw the glint of the two large glass bulbs that she wielded.

Francesca screeched in anger, but rallied enough against the vervain's torment to make a desperate and unexpected lurch in Anna's direction. Anna's aim didn't waver as she launched the first Molotov cocktail straight into Thom's chest, where it exploded in a flaming ball of energy that subsumed the old vampire in seconds. Thom's frenzied shouts fell silent as his body quickly flamed into ash, disintegrated and was washed across the concrete floor in the rivulets of poison. As she heard her mate's grisly end, Francesca picked up speed, narrowly dodging the second fire bomb that Anna unleashed, throwing herself upon the younger vampire.

'Get Elena out,' Anna yelled to Damon, and, in the time it took her to speak, Francesca had reached out for Anna's head and twisted. Anna's body slumped to the floor, neck broken and head at a sickening angle. Elena could not hold back the scream that rose in her throat.

'She'll live,' Damon muttered, wrapping his arms around Elena and yanking her to a shadowed corner of the room and another doorway half-concealed there. Elena barely had time to look back through the wet room at Francesca, monstrous and feral with her soaking clothes and veiny black eyes, before Damon had urged her through into the next room.

:::

Two doors and a lot of dust later, Damon and Elena hit fresh air on the other side of the building. The small yard they were standing in was half full of junk, and tucked between the tall walls of two warehouses.

A moment later Francesca caught up with them, obviously weakened but still quite badass enough to give Damon plenty of trouble. The murderous rage in her eyes was making Elena's pulse race in abstract terror.

As she backed up softly, Elena's boot hit an uneven slab of paving, and she stumbled back, only to be caught by Damon's iron grip. He tugged her behind him, protectively, and Elena was too scared to be ashamed of the way she clung to the back of his shoulder.

Then, suddenly, Damon froze. Elena _felt _rather than heard his harsh intake of breath, and she _definitely_ felt the tightening of his grip on her fingers, almost to the point of pain.

'What are you doing here?' he said to Francesca, in a wondering tone, as if he _knew her. _As if she was something important to him.

That seemed to stop Francesca in her tracks, and she quirked her head in confusion.

Yeah. Elena was right there with her.

'Damon, what are you talking about?' Elena hissed.

'Elena, stay behind me.' Damon said, firmly, but with a worried note in his voice that simply hadn't been there before: not through the melting eyeballs, Molotov cocktails or snapping necks. He still hadn't taken his eyes from Francesca. 'I said what are you doing here, Katherine?'

'_What_?'

Elena thought she and Francesca said that at the same time.

'Damon, that's Francesca. You know that...right?' Elena was worried now that something might have happened to Damon. Had he hit his head? Could vampires get concussion?

It was as if Damon could hear her, but the meaning of her words didn't seem to penetrate his thick skull.

'That's Katherine,' he said, as if _of course _it was Katherine, _obviously_ Elena could see that and _why_ were they even talking about this? As he said it though, Damon turned his head a tiny bit, to glance over his shoulder at Elena and _then… _Oh, crap. Then Elena saw the purple haze hovering over and around Damon. Just a soft glow, like an aura, but it told her how very, very badly she had fucked up and now they were going to die. They were going to die because of her.

Honestly, Elena thought desperately, how was she supposed to know the freaking spell she'd had Bonnie cast over Damon would make him hallucinate his ex-lover when they were in mortal peril? It was just supposed to make Damon confess whether it was Elena or Katherine who came first in his heart. How was this _anything like that?_

Elena glanced uneasily at Francesca, who had set aside the homicidal anger for a moment and was taking unnatural delight in Damon's mental breakdown, at least if the manic grin on her tiny, pixie face was anything to go by. Elena wondered what the chances were of snapping Damon out of the trance in the next five seconds.

'Damon,' she said, uncertainly, tugging at his jacket.

'It's okay,' Damon said, soothingly. 'I won't let her hurt you, Elena.'

'Oh, I'm gonna hurt her plenty,' Francesca said, that wild power back in her eyes, despite her recent vervain shower. She quirked a smile at Elena, almost affectionate. 'I think your boyfriend's touched in the head.'

'I'm not Elena's boyfriend, Katherine,' Damon said, gentle but serious, and it reminded Elena of someone facing a beautiful but dangerous animal in the wild, hoping to keep the creature happy but aware that things could turn nasty at any minute. 'Elena's not mine. She's with Stefan. You know that. There's no need to hurt her.'

Despite everything, Elena found herself nonsensically stung by the rejection in Damon's words. By the way Francesca's eyes found hers and narrowed mockingly, Elena guessed she might need to work on her poker face. Y'know, if she lived long enough for that to be a concern.

'I like you, Damon Salvatore,' Francesca announced. 'I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm all kinds of pissed about you killing Thom, but I guess he did come after your girlfriend first, so I get it.' The craziness flashed behind her eyes again, highlighting how scary quick she could flicker between intense, grief-fuelled rage and an unbalanced, almost child-like amused malice. 'So, how about this. I've changed my mind about turning your human. More trouble than she's worth. Let's get killing Elena over and done with, and then I'll let you come away with me. I'm really good fun, you know. I think we'd be a great team.'

'Not going to happen,' Damon said, shortly.

Francesca pouted, pretty as a picture.

'We'd be good for each other,' she said. 'I need someone fun, to heal my broken heart. And you _definitely_ need a break from human company. It's pathetic how whipped you are. You need to commune with your inner vampire, honey. Rediscover the evil inside.' Francesca smiled, unkindly, eyes flickering to Elena. 'Humans are food, not friends.'

'Back off, Katherine,' Damon growled. 'You so much as touch Elena, and you'll find out just how in-touch I am with my inner vampire.'

Francesca's silvery laugh fell flat on the tension in the air.

'Silly boy,' she said. 'So, I'm Katherine, am I? Well then...You don't want to hurt me. You _love _me. Everyone knows how much the Salvatore brothers adore Katherine Pierce. You especially, Damon. You might be fond of your little human doppelganger, but she's a shadow of the real deal, isn't she. Be honest, now. You don't want to hurt me.'

Even though she knew it was Francesca, not Katherine, standing in front of them, Elena shivered at her jibes. The problem was, Francesca might be right. Against Francesca, Elena would have trusted Damon to defend her, to kill for her. But if he thought he was fighting Katherine? Elena had no idea where he would draw the line.

Damon loved Katherine. The vampire had spent centuries obsessed with saving her, so they could be together again. Sure, he was heartbroken when he found out she had betrayed him, not even telling him she was free all those years. Then, when he'd discovered the truth about her and Klaus, and their little apocalyptic mission, Damon must have felt he never really knew Katherine at all. Elena had experienced first hand the unnerving spectacle of Damon, working through his pain. None of what Katherine had done could stop Damon loving her. After all, it wasn't exactly like she'd offended his strict moral compass. Damon was just hurt that she didn't love him the way he'd believed she had.

Hell, the strength of Damon's feelings for Katherine was one of the major reasons it was Stefan and not Damon currently on an extended tour of Europe. She was the love of_ both _his lives. How could Elena compete with that?

Would Damon hurt Katherine, _kill_ Katherine, to save Elena?

With a sinking feeling, Elena realised she knew the answer to that. She silently prayed for Damon to snap out of the spell's influence, before he let Francesca kill Elena, or both of them, in whatever nasty way she was planning.

'You're right,' Damon said. His voice was slow and careful, and he hadn't let go of Elena, but suddenly she felt very distant from him. 'I don't want to hurt you, Katherine. You know damn well how I feel about you, and you use it against me fucking ruthlessly. But Elena is not _nothing_ to me, Katherine. She's not some shadow of you. I- Stefan loves her.'

'_You_ love her,' Francesca said, gleefully. 'Damon, Damon, Damon. Always wanting what your brother has.'

'I mean it, Katherine,' Damon said, tone darkening. 'I won't let you hurt her.'

Francesca tilted her head, considering the situation.

'I could go back to plan A and turn her,' she suggested, with a sparkle in her eye. Elena flinched involuntarily at the thought of Francesca's teeth slicing into her neck, of being with her what she was with Damon not so long ago. She couldn't bear it. She'd rather die.

Elena felt Damon's fingers flutter against hers, warning her not to move, or not to be scared, or something that she couldn't quite understand. It didn't matter now. Francesca wasn't going to back down and this was the end of the line. Although this was the end, and she was sure she was supposed to regret her sins and want to make amends, Elena somehow still felt a spark of comfort that she was here with Damon. She loved Stefan and she hoped he would be safe, and she was kind enough to regret the pain that Stefan would feel when he learned of what happened here. She hoped that, somehow, Damon would survive, so Stefan wouldn't be alone.

She hoped that Damon would survive because, yes, she could admit now that she was in love with him and she couldn't bear to imagine the alternative, a world without him. She was glad it was Damon's hand in hers. She was strangely okay with Damon's face being the image she would carry into whatever afterlife might await her.

She also wanted it to be done, now.

'No-one's going to turn me,' Elena said, boldly stepping sideways out of Damon's shadow. She glared at Francesca. 'Let's get this over with, bitch.'

Damon frowned. When Elena moved into his eye line, the purple haze glowing around him was mockingly apparent. She wondered if Francesca could see it too, or if it was only Elena, because she was the one the spell had been cast for. Sighing, Elena worried at her bottom lip.

'If she kills me, you make sure I stay dead, okay Damon?'

Damon frowned even deeper and rolled his eyes. He pulled a particularly obnoxious face.

'Elena, shut up. She's not going to _kill_ you.'

'Hello?' Francesca piped up. 'Aren't you listening to me, knucklehead? I am most definitely going to kill her. The question is, whether I give her some vampire go-juice as well. I mean, life's gonna be quiet without Thom. I could use the distraction, and if you're not up for it...'

'You don't even like Thom,' Damon pointed out, of course still thinking he was talking to Katherine. 'Remember the reason you ditched Francesca back in the day? You screwed Thom a few times and after that he was all little lost puppy dog, wanting you two to run off into the sunset together.' He smirked. 'Guess you do have a way with men, after all. Turn all of us crazy.'

Oh great. Just freaking perfect. Elena shook her head in dismay. Of course Damon had to go and tell the crazy powerful vampire that Katherine, the friend she had come all this way to find, had actually dumped her because the skank had slept with her mate behind her back. The mate Damon and Anna had just crispy fried. This was bound to improve the situation.

Francesca's expression at this revelation was possibly the ugliest thing Elena had ever seen on a human face. It was as if she was so angry she couldn't decide what she wanted to do first, to inflict as much damage as soon as possible. Francesca snarled and Elena watched in horror as her visage slid into its vampire form, all rage-filled black eyes, bloodless skin and vicious teeth.

There was barely time to think that, yes, this was how she was going to die. A wave of nauseating horror crashed over Elena and left her frozen, fixed in place as Francesca blurred across the ground between them, sinking cold fingers painfully hard into Elena's arms and lowering merciless fangs down to Elena's pulsating jugular.

Elena squeezed her eyes shut, and tried to think of Damon's most heartbreaking smile. The blood roared in her ears, and she struggled to fight off panic as she waited for Francesca's bite to tear into her.

Elena heard Francesca's throaty snarl, and a different, unearthly, animal noise that was probably Damon, and felt the steel-like fingers holding her arms in place grasp even tighter. Then a sickening sound of ripping flesh and cracking bone assaulted her ears. Afraid to open her eyes, Elena sunk to the ground on weakened legs, as Francesca's hands released her. It seemed an eternity suspended in motion, while Elena fought through her fear and tried to put sound and touch back in their proper place. When she did, she became aware of arms around her, a familiar and comforting smell of leather near to her face, and Damon's voice urging her to open her eyes.

'It's over, Elena,' Damon spoke softly to the trembling girl. 'You're safe. I won't let anything hurt you.'

She was, Elena found as she forced her eyes open, cradled in Damon's arms on the floor. Something that had happened all too frequently over the last few weeks- a subject she could, miraculously, berate herself on later. Francesca's shrivelled vampire corpse lay a short distance beyond Damon's shoulder. Well, most of it did. The head was languishing in the weeds at the edge of the courtyard, eyes open in a nightmarish echo of the moment Damon had ripped it from her shoulders. Elena shivered, and wondered at the physical force Damon must have used to do such a thing to a much older vampire, even after the vervain. His stone hard body was a pillar of strength against her own human softness, reminding Elena yet again of Damon's fearsome inhumanity. Fearsome, but not frightening—not anymore, not to the one person in the world he would move heaven or hell to protect. And he had, Elena realised. Damon _had_ protected her, even over...

'Katherine's dead,' Damon was saying, his voice shaken but determined. As Elena turned her face upwards to Damon's, he offered her a strained half smile, long dark lashes fluttering with the rapid blinking of his eyes.

'Damon—'

'It's okay,' Damon said. 'I wouldn't let Katherine hurt you. I wouldn't let anyone hurt you. She made her choice. It had to happen this way.'

The purple haze around Damon seemed to flex and flicker viciously for a moment, then with a palpable surge of energy it puffed one final time before disintegrating into the night air. As it did, Damon's eyes rolled back in his head and Elena found herself clutching an unconscious vampire, his weight heavy against her.

The thought crossed Elena's mind that there was probably something she should be doing now. Something to wake Damon, something to clean them both up. Something to help Anna back in the warehouse, check that she was healing and still undead. Something to clean up the mess inside, or the gruesome remains of the vampire Damon had just killed. She should probably call someone—her brother, Bonnie... Stefan? Yes, the thought crossed Elena's mind, but it quickly fled again. The adrenaline of the confrontation was leaving her body and Elena was exhausted. The yard was quiet and Elena was content to sit on the cool ground and take advantage of the peaceful moment, half still locked in the protective circle of Damon's arms and half holding him against her body, keeping him safe until he awoke.

So much had happened, and Elena needed to process and consider it all, but right now it was enough to sit and be still, just to breathe and keep breathing. Elena trailed her fingers slowly through Damon's hair, and let her mind go blank.

Eventually Anna appeared, a picture of petite annoyance, from the building behind. She rubbed her neck and frowned as she took in the scene before her, the aftermath of Francesca's demise and the unconscious Salvatore brother entwined in a strange embrace with Elena Gilbert on the ground.

'What happened to Damon?'

Elena shrugged, helplessly.

'He's alright,' she said. 'Just needs to rest.' She hoped. Elena was confident Bonnie wouldn't have cast any spell that could cause to harm Damon.

Anna snorted.

'Men,' she sighed. 'So I guess we're doing the clean up then.'

_To be continued..._


	13. Chapter 13

**Overprotective**

Disclaimer: I do not own any rights or have any connection with The Vampire Diaries, books or TV show.

Hi again. I know this story has been limping on over a ridiculous length of time, but I am so touched that even after this time people are kind enough to review or PM me with messages of encouragement to finish this fic. I massively appreciate every single comment and every person who follows or favourites this as well. There's only a few more chapters of this to go now, so thanks everyone who has stuck with it and of course welcome to any new readers too :)

_**Warning**: this fic is rated M for a reason- we have reached that reason in this chapter! Here be smut... so please do not read if you are not an adult or if you do not like adult language and content in your fanfic._

**Part 13**

It was nearly dawn by the time Elena and Anna returned to the Gilbert house. Once Elena had checked up on Jeremy—passed out fully clothed on his bed with the TV still on— she left her little brother in the care of vampire girl who loved him enough to, apparently, risk injury and even her life in order to keep him safe from harm or heartache. She might not be ready to call Anna her new sister-in-law, exactly, but Elena couldn't deny that she might well not have survived to see the morning without the girl's help.

'Honestly, Elena, Jeremy will never know anything happened while he slept,' Anna said. 'I was right here with him when he fell asleep, and I didn't leave until Damon text me to say he'd picked up the scent of your favourite ex-stalkers. I'll be here when he wakes up, safe and sound.' She hesitated before adding, 'You should be proud, Elena. You looked after your brother, and you were brave to stand beside Damon through a not un-scary situation. I think you deserve to relax now.'

'Maybe,' Elena said, grateful for Anna's attempt to soothe her. 'You were the one who kept my brother safe though, not to mention putting your life in danger to save me. What you and Damon did for me... I don't even know how to say thank you for something like that.'

Anna smiled softly, her face betraying the wisdom of her true age for once. 'I'll wake him up before sunrise,' she promised Elena. 'He'll be back at Joel's house before Mrs Harris even knows he didn't sleep there last night.'

'Thanks,' Elena said, shuffling her feet a bit as she heard Damon pacing by the front door. He had regained consciousness after about an hour, but had been suspiciously quiet since then, giving Elena searching sideways looks only to glance away again when she turned to him. 'Well...I'd better-'

'Get Sleeping Beauty back to his castle?' Anna said, with an amused gleam in her eye. 'The question really is, once you're there, are you going to save him with the kiss of true love?'

:::

'Forgive the cliché, Elena, but we need to talk,' Damon said. He glanced across the car at Elena, whose face was starting to mirror the slight daze he had felt ever since the scene with Francesca. Oh, Damon was sure she knew what had happened back there, even though he himself was trying to put it together in his head, like the morning after a heavy night. Elena had been acting shifty from the second Damon woke up from his mystery nap, but the past few minutes in the car it was different, almost as if she was having some silent debate with herself and the outcome was confusing her somewhat.

'Elena,' Damon said again, a bit louder and more impatiently. He clicked his fingers in front of the girl's face and she blinked, turning to him and blushing a beautiful shade of pink. 'Oh good, there you are,' Damon sniped. 'Ready to tell me what happened back there? It's almost like there's two sets of memories in my head, and I can barely make out which are real. Which leads to me to the always unpleasant conclusion that magic was somehow involved. Which,' he continued, giving the steering wheel an unhappy slap of his hand, 'leads me to deduce that the lovely pain-in-the-ass teenage witch Miss Bonnie Bennett had a part to play. Which,' he finally turned with a _tsk_ing sound and waggled a finger at his brunette companion, 'leads me to suspect that your little bathroom powwow earlier this evening was a bit more serious than your average BFF super-secret girlie gossip. Am I right?'

There was a slight pause, before Elena looked down at her lap and answered Damon in a subdued, guilty sounding voice.

'Yes.'

Damon looked at her expectantly, which almost worried Elena given that he was driving the car, but she dismissed it as a minor concern in the current situation. She sighed, knotting her hands together in her lap.

'Damon, I- I made a really stupid mistake, and it almost got us both killed. I'm so sorry. I feel like such an idiot.'

'Elena,' Damon said, more gently, 'what did you do?' She still wouldn't look at him and he sensed that she really was feeling bad about what had happened. Bad and, maybe, embarrassed?

'I asked Bonnie to cast a spell,' Elena admitted. This much Damon knew, but he didn't interrupt, trying to be patient. 'I didn't know it would happen like that, it wasn't supposed to put you in danger or I never would have asked Bonnie. Please don't be mad at her. I just wanted to know, I needed to know...'

'To know what Elena?' Damon asked. The wait for her to explain herself was almost torturous.

'How you feel about me,' Elena said, and this time she did find the courage to sneak a tiny glance at Damon's face. He looked weirdly calm, except for the brightness in his eyes. Emboldened, she continued. 'The spell was meant to reveal the truth to a specific question about a person. I asked it to tell me if it was me or Katherine who is truly in your heart.'

'You what?' Damon practically yelped, in a particularly un-badass way. 'Why on earth would you- Of all the boneheaded- I cannot believe that you of all people-'

The car lurched to a halt and Damon's irate rant cut off in tandem the engine. Elena realised they were already home, parked outside the Salvatore boarding house- and when had that started to feel like _home_ to her? Damon was looking very serious in the driver's seat and Elena gathered he was relocating his cool or something.

'I am sorry,' she offered again.

'Elena,' Damon said, turning in his seat. Thankfully, Elena gathered, the yelping phase was behind them. Damon's eyes were troubled, but still full of their usual sparkle and passion. 'You're my brother's girl. I might be an ass, but I'm not exactly going round shouting it from the rooftops that I have feelings for you. That said,' he reached out a finger to tilt her chin upwards, making sure he had eye contact for this awkward but very precious moment, 'if you don't know that I'm in love with you then you're a freaking idiot.'

Elena gasped and Damon wasn't sure if that made her happy or if she was about to cry. Either way, it didn't make a difference to the fact that, whatever had developed between them in the past few months, Elena was in love with his brother, and the last thing Damon ever wanted to do was drag her into the darkness with him.

He gave her a quick smile to lighten the mood.

'Not to mention you made me look like a total airhead when I started hallucinating that Katherine was in front of me.' Damon was deliberately not thinking too much about quite how deviously he had been robbed of his control and, well, his complete mental faculties. He was torn between being outraged at being manipulated, scared of how easily Elena could have died tonight and a tiny bit proud of her for coming up with such as sneaky plan. Even if it had back-fired on her, quite spectacularly. That was the general problem, Damon mused, with emotion-led scheming. Feelings were really never conducive to battle tactics: you took advantage of those that caused weakness in your enemy but you never let your own feelings trip you up. Oh, who was he kidding? Damon rolled his eyes at himself, knowing that nothing he had done to protect Elena recently had been the smart thing to do. It has just been what he had needed to do, which was anything, anything at all, to keep this girl safe. How had she ever thought for a second that he wouldn't chose her over Katherine, over anyone on the planet? Taking a deep breath, he resolved to chill the fuck out before he got a Stefan-esque brood on. Jeez, this girl made him care _way _too much.

'So,' he said, as he got back to the point, 'how about we make a deal that you never, ever, _ever_ use magic on me without my permission, like _ever_ again... and as for the heavy talk where I whinge at you about what could have happened tonight, let's not and say we did, ok?'

Elena just nodded, her gaze fixed somewhere in the region of Damon's shoulder, unmoving as he patted her knee before hopping out of the car and looking at her expectantly. 'Are you coming inside?' he asked, aiming for casual. Elena nodded again, and Damon tried not to be unnerved by her strangely docile responses.

The front door shut behind them, and Damon was halfway across the entrance hall before he realised Elena wasn't moving. Hadn't taken off her jacket, or even switched the lights on. In the dark shadows his vampire eyesight could make her out perfectly, stood shock still just inside the doorway, staring at nothing, her only movement the worry of teeth against her bottom lip.

Breathing in a wholly unnecessary deep rush of oxygen, Damon stepped tentatively back towards Elena.

'Elena, are you okay?'

Her eyes flickered, but didn't rise to meet his. He could practically see an overload of thoughts tumbling roughshod through her head.

'Do you- You don't have to be here. I can take back home. Or you- I could call Bonnie or Matt,' Damon said.

'No,' Elena said, the barest whisper of a word that she didn't realise she'd spoken until it was out. 'No,' she repeated, stronger, and she meant it. God forgive her, she meant it and so much more.

'I'm sorry, Damon,' she said, so very softly, still fixated on the floorboards under her boots.

'You don't have anything to be sorry for,' Damon said, and he was so utterly confused by what she was trying to say that Elena stifled a soft giggle even as a rogue tear streaked down her cheek. Damon was there, _right_ in front of her, straight away; the pad of his thumb chasing the wet trail down her skin.

'Hey, hey now,' he was murmuring, in soothing tones. 'Everything's okay now. Everything's alright, Elena. Francesca and Thom are dead. You're safe.' Elena had the vague thought that this, right now, was so much worse than anything centuries old vampires could have dreamed up. The worst part was, now that she had accepted the choice her heart _had_ to make, she couldn't even squash the feeling of _rightness_, even peace, that was singing up to her. This was the very worst and the very best thing Elena could ever do.

'I'm so sorry, Damon,' she said again, 'for everything, for putting us in more danger tonight and... for this.'

'What-'

Damon cut off abruptly when Elena's lips pressed gently to his own. So gentle, it was barely a kiss; more a breath of sweet air. She felt him tense, frozen in place more perfectly than a human ever could. When she pulled back far enough to see his eyes, they were like pools of wild blue fire, desire visibly battling with the common sense Elena had thrown to the wind.

'Elena, you don't want this,' Damon whispered, and Elena almost had to laugh to think that they had come this far, to a place where _Damon_ was the one trying to put the brakes on, as she dragged him to perdition. Except, the last thing she felt like doing right now was laughing.

'I do,' she said, so sure, and felt him shiver as she fisted her hands in the thin fabric of his t-shirt. 'It's not about what I want. It's about what I _need_. What I can't live without.' She threw Damon's own words back at him, past the point of dignity or pride. 'Damon,' she drew a shuddering breath, 'I can't ignore _us_. I've tried. God, I've tried so hard. I'm so sorry.'

Damon's hands came up to cup her face, possessive and demanding, making her heart leap into her throat.

'I'm not,' he said, and then his mouth was on hers, hot and hard, and it was nothing like anything Elena had ever felt before. Nothing like the teasing, almost chaste kisses they'd exchanged early that night. This was raw, painfully stripped down; pure greed, want, _taking_. Without anything that could pass for conscious decision, Elena's hands were urging Damon closer, her mouth opening for him, both of them trying just as desperately to crawl right inside each other.

Sweet Jesus, the feel of his mouth on her, kissing her with all of his considerable skill, after all this time. She'd imagined it- spent more time than she dared admit fantasising about Damon's kiss- but _this_ she couldn't have imagined, because she had no frame of reference for it. It was a bruising combination: the perfect pressure of his lips, soft and insistent against hers; the velvet feel of his tongue licking in deeply, tasting each millimetre of her mouth; the pleasure-pain as his teeth dragged along her lower lip, nibbling lightly, nipping harder. It drew blood, and Elena was already too far gone to even care. All it did was spark some darker desire in her, and she was pliant as he captured her lip again to taste her properly.

There was something deliciously primal about the gravelly moan from Damon when that tiniest taste of her life essence striped across his tongue. Then he was trailing fire from her lips to the hollow of her throat, the scratch of stubble making her gasp as he licked and sucked a path back up her jaw line, all the way to her earlobe.

Elena was wrecked. Already liquid gel in Damon's arms, and he'd barely laid a hand on her. Everywhere he touched her skin felt electric, an intensely good buzz of energy that had her whole body vibrating, completely yielding to him, _his_ in any way he wanted. She was pretty sure her panties were embarrassingly soaked through and, God, if this was Damon _kissing_ then she wasn't sure she'd survive anything else.

'Elena,' Damon growled into her neck, voice half broken with lust- and just when had they ended up against the wall, Damon's leg nudging between her thighs and his warm weight pinning her upright? Elena moaned at the loss of contact when he pulled back from her and she mindlessly chased after his mouth, but Damon gripped her shoulders hard, forcing them face to face.

Elena gasped at Damon's vamped out face. Just like Stefan, deep arousal obviously triggered the change; Damon's eyes were dark as molasses, black veins spidery round them, face paler than pale, fangs extended.

Unlike his brother, Damon owned it.

Elena had known that Damon was comfortable in his vampire body, but seeing him now, control slipping and wonderfully free, she understood for the first time that this was as much the real Damon as she'd ever know. It didn't change anything. Elena wanted _all _of him, and if he hadn't given her this willingly, she'd have gone looking for it.

Elena was in love with a man and a vampire, and the sight of him now, so dark and dangerous and _turned on_, was literally the sexiest thing she'd ever seen.

'Woah, you're beautiful,' Elena said, without really meaning to, and usually it would have made her blush, but there wasn't room for oxygen, let alone blushes, between them right now. Damon grinned- a reckless, terrifying grin- and pressed his fingertips to her swollen lips. When she parted them instinctively to kiss his skin, he pushed two fingers inside her mouth and moved them gently until Elena got the hint and sucked firmly. Some soft curse fell from his mouth as he pumped shallow onto the wet of her tongue.

'Is this what you really want?' he asked, and it sounded like a final offer. 'Getting to the point of no return here, Elena.'

Elena released Damon's fingers and pressed reverent kisses into the palm of his hand.

'Please,' was all she said, but the cloying need she'd put behind that one word shuddered through her, straight into Damon. She had to hope he'd recognise it for the answer it was.

Apparently, Damon did, because he growled and suddenly his hips were grinding forwards, sliding in sweet friction against the crotch of Elena's jeans. She wriggled against him, shamelessly seeking more.

Turned out, Damon had it covered.

:::

When Elena was sixteen, she'd lost her virginity to Matt Donovan on his Incredible Hulk bed sheets. It was fumbling and sweet and everything a first time should be. Elena'd had a lot of boyfriends, kissed a lot of guys before Matt. Elena was glad she waited for someone like Matt for her first time. Matt treated her so nicely; she honestly didn't know why it had taken her so long to realise how perfect for her he was. Then her parents died, and it was a long while before Elena could even think of _sweet_ or _nice_ again.

Until Stefan came into her life.

Stefan made love to Elena like he was trying to piece her back together. Maybe piece himself back together, as well. There was nothing fumbling about it, but there was plenty of need. Plenty of desire and plenty of love. He touched her like a man dying of thirst, if she was cool water. It made her feel wanted, and Elena loved him, God she loved him. Stefan between the sheets was like Stefan any other time; honest, thoughtful and gorgeous. Passionate, but with restraint. Intimate, without being suffocating. Sex with Stefan was fun and warm and satisfying. Sex with Stefan was never scary.

When Elena fantasised about what it would be like to sleep with Damon- and of course she had, ever since he fastened that pendant back around her neck, too close and too trusting for comfort- she'd always imagined his bedroom antics would live up to his womanizing reputation. Pretty much the dirtiest exercise in debauchery Elena's mind could conjure up; all crass words, filthy looks and carnal acts to make a backstreet whore blush like a virgin. It's not that Elena was naturally inclined to extreme sexual kinks; it's just where her mind went when she fixed on Damon's intense come-to-bed eyes and remembered the blissed, fucked-out look Caroline was permanently sporting for the few months Damon was in her bed.

Being with Damon wasn't anything like that, though.

It was much, much scarier.

:::

Damon deposited a trembling Elena on the middle of his bedcover and, annoyingly, stayed standing at the edge of the bed. Elena tried to pull herself together and look at him, wondering why the hell he wasn't touching her right now, but Damon was just staring at her, face vampire-dark and right on the cusp of frightening. Elena tried to imagine what he saw. Her lips swollen from his kisses; messy hair pulled mostly free of its earlier ponytail; lust-blown eyes hot and wanton. She didn't want him to _look_; she wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted so much more.

Elena wasn't sure which one of them she surprised more when she moved, without warning grabbing Damon and tugging at the expensive black shirt between her and Damon's body. It came away with a little assistance from Damon, and then she could run her hands over the smooth planes of his pale chest and stomach, feeling the hard walls of muscle she'd fantasised about every time he'd brushed up against her. There was no conscious thought involved as Elena pressed her lips to the jut of Damon's collarbone, mouthing warmly down to flick her tongue over one hard little nipple. Damon's skin tasted of things that shouldn't have flavour: heat and dark energy and moonlight. It was the only way Elena could describe the _unknown_ that pervaded his scent and sat heavy on her tongue. It was mouth-watering.

Damon's deep throaty groan chased straight to Elena's groin, even as the vampire tugged her back upright and made short work of stripping her down to bra and panties. Without her boots on, Elena had to tilt her head up to seek the warmth of Damon's mouth again. He obliged by kissing her deeply, and let his tongue trail a wet path to her neck as he slid her bra off. Without lifting his head, Damon continued licking a path down until, suddenly, his mouth was on her breast, was latching onto one of her painfully peaked nipples and sucking with perfect pressure, whilst his palm closed over her other small breast, alternating gentle squeezes with rough strokes of his thumb.

Any other time Elena might have been embarrassed by the high, keening whine that came out of her under Damon's skilled attentions, but she was far too turned on to worry about that. She wasn't even naked yet, but desire was shooting like a lightning bolt straight to her clit each time Damon's tongue or fingers dragged across her nipples and her whole body was rapidly heating up. She knew her breathing was rapidly becoming more of a pant.

Before she could register the loss of contact, Damon had practically shoved her down onto the bed and was looming over her, kneeling up next to her feet.

'Take your panties off, Elena,' Damon said, rough with lust. 'I want to see you.'

Elena gasped a little at his words, so turned on her skin felt aching and too tight, but hesitated. This- Damon's intense gaze, the emotion shockingly raw on his face, his unabashed enjoyment of her- was overwhelming. Elena suddenly felt very young, and helplessly out of her depth; flesh and soul bared to this man who she loved, but who would always be too far from human to be truly safe. There was nothing safe about this, Elena realised anew, wondering at how perfectly desperate her body was to surrender to this predator. Desperate to please him, and yet- she bit her lip and tried not to blush at the intimacy Damon asked of her.

Elena sensed it was somehow important to him that she be the one to offer herself freely, and she wanted so much to give that to him, to show that she trusted him. The distance Damon had put between their bodies so he could watch her spread out before him somehow made it feel _more_ intimate, not less, and she suspected this was as calculated on Damon's part as every other move he made. Telling herself it was no use being shy now, she shifted to balance in her current position, half-sitting up against the stack of pillows on Damon's bed- and hooked her thumbs under the top of the tiny scrap of black lace masquerading as underwear. To her chagrin, the involuntary whimpering noise happened again when she saw Damon's eyes fixed firmly between her legs as she lifted her hips to slide her panties off. It was not the most elegant of manoeuvres to shimmy them over her feet and kick the damp material onto the floor, but Damon didn't seem to mind. His gaze became even more heated, and he smiled wryly at Elena's sudden shyness under his observance as she pressed her thighs together.

'Elena,' he said, and a gently hand clamped around one calf, firmly easing her legs apart until she was completely was on display for him, swollen and hot, streaks of wet already shining on her inner thighs. Elena flushed cherry dark and breathed deeply, but didn't look away from Damon's face as he took in the sight of her. Damon gave a small, thrilling growl in the back of his throat, and his eyes slid up to meet Elena's nervous gaze.

'You're perfect,' he told her seriously, leaning down to place tiny kisses along the inside of her thighs. His cheek brushed against her neat patch of pubic hair as he kissed right up her leg, onto her stomach, ignoring the place she suddenly, desperately wanted his mouth to be. Damon chuckled, feeling Elena twitch with frustration as he travelled up her body. 'I'm gonna give you everything you need,' he reassured her. 'Patience, sweetheart.'

'Damon, you're really freaking me out with all the terms of endearment,' Elena managed to huff out.

'_Sweetheart_,' Damon repeated, without a scrap of mirth, 'there's not one tiny part of you that's freaking out right now.'

He was right, of course, and they both knew it. The limited parts of Elena not currently preoccupied with breathing through the extreme erotic overload might be nervous, excited or impatient, but she was one hundred per cent certain that this was what she wanted- no, needed- to be doing. Elena would have rolled her eyes at Damon, but they were too busy rolling back in her head as Damon's hand dipped between her legs and his fingers stroked across the slickness there. Damon's groan was pretty obscene.

'Do you know how fucking hot it is that you're this wet for me, right now?' he ground out, and then Damon's fingers were moving with purpose, were stroking rough circles right _there_ and she was nearly coming undone.

'Ahh,' she breathed, allowing her lips to part as they wanted, sucking quick mouthfuls of air into her lungs. It was all too much, too insanely good, just from the simplest of touches as Damon teased her nerves until they mutinied against her, craving this new, dangerous lover more than her conscious mind could absorb. Elena couldn't help herself grinding her hips up against his fingers, hyperaware of that empty place inside that she suddenly _needed_ him to fill, with his fingers, his tongue, God, anything, just as long as it was _Damon_. The measured, deliberate pace of his caress was driving her insane in the best way, and every drag of the calloused pad of his finger was a bolt of electricity through her entire body. The part of her brain where reason used to live vaguely noted the wanton display she was making, but she didn't care enough to temper the shameless writhing of her body, even as Damon pressed her further down into the covers with his still semi-clothed body. 'Please, Damon,' Elena said breathlessly, '_please_, I, ahh, God, I can't-'

'Yes,' Damon said, hot breath against the shell of her ear, sending another shiver down her spine that nearly shoved her over the edge. 'You can, Elena. You can have this, sweetheart. Let go for me.'

'Damon-' was all Elena managed to gasp out before she felt her inner muscles contract one final time, sending her release shuddering through her as she climaxed with a full body shiver. Her head was thrown back and she was barely aware of the guttural moan Damon coaxed out of her as he chased her through the orgasm, fingers delicate between her spread thighs and teeth scraping teasingly at her throat.

As Elena came down, Damon's lips traced a moist path from her neck, around the shell of her ear and across her cheekbone. When his mouth finally closed over hers again, Elena's lips parted immediately, craving the soft flicker of his tongue against her own. One hand tangled in her hair, the other trailed wet fingers up to toy some more with her nipples as the kiss deepened. Elena lost herself in the sensation, moulding bonelessly to Damon's hard body.

When Elena's heart rate had returned to something less cardiac-arrest-inducing, Damon pulled back to brush a kiss across her forehead.

'We'll call that one a warm-up.'

'You might kill me,' she said, softly and half seriously. She felt dazed and out of her depth, yet elated and more alive than she had ever known. This was more real, more her, more _them_ than she had known could exist. She could hardly believe this was happening, that she was allowed to have this with _him_. Damon—the vampire she had slowly and torturously fallen in love with, in the cruellest twist of fate, who she had never dreamed she would experience this incredibly intimacy with—was the one shedding the last of his clothes now, and pressing cool flesh against her flushed skin. _Damon_ was touching her like this, in a way no man ever had, making her realise she hadn't known her body, hadn't known herself at all, before he put his hands on her in this way. She had been a ghost, and he was pulling her back across the divide.

'You have nothing to fear,' Damon murmured, soft fingers finding her lips in the lightest caress. 'We were made to do this, Elena. Let me show you.'

'Anything,' Elena's response was choked with emotion. 'Make me yours, Damon, please.' She leaned in to kiss her lover with all the passion she had been fighting against since Damon had crashed into her life.

Ageless vampire eyes stared down at Elena as Damon shifted, in a motion borne of raw, dark power, and poised above her with intent. Elena shuddered, and pressed against him encouragingly, shimmying her hips so they moved in counter circles against Damon's, ramping the friction up to near unbearable levels. Then, without warning, Damon was right there, fingertips pressing tiny bruises into her thigh, coaxing it wider and higher for better access as he slid into her in one easy stroke.

It wasn't just sex. Elena had the hazy, insane notion that sex with Damon was like a whole other thing he'd personally invented, because regular sex just wasn't hot enough for him. Or maybe she'd just been doing it wrong before.

It was like being eaten alive, consumed from the inside, burned up and breathed in and _melted_ into Damon, until they were fused together. It was strangely terrifying and, God, Elena _loved_ it, couldn't think of it being any other way, _any_ other way than this: Damon, ingrained on the back of her eyelids, pushing into her mind, scorching his mark into every hidden place. Elena could scrub at her skin for hours and he'd still be there, hot energy in her veins, bringing her to life.

The air around Elena shifted; suddenly she was pressed against Damon's chest, letting his strong arms guide her frantic rise-and-fall's, crying out for him even as his mouth smothered the sound on her lips. He moved impossibly fast inside her, every delicious friction was an agony of pleasure, a million micro-seconds of clarity in an overwhelming cacophony of feeling. Elena felt everything inside her reaching for more of Damon's perfect, incomprehensible touch. She couldn't keep track of the words spilling from her lips, unsure if she was begging or praising, or just making wordless sounds of desperation.

'Hush sweetheart,' Damon murmured soothingly, his breath hot on Elena's ear, as one hand came up to cup her face. She was briefly aware of the sheen of sweat covering her body, as Damon adjusted the angle of his thrusts minutely and their bodies slid against each other. Damon slid in hard again, and Elena gasped his name as even more new sensations sparked to life deep inside her. She had never felt this connected with another being in her entire existence.

'I'm going to bite you,' Damon said in a lust-deepened rasp that made Elena's eyes snap open and lock onto his. The vampire's eyes were dark and anticipatory; Elena knew without a shadow of a doubt this was what it felt like to be Damon's prey, but it only served to heighten the erotic tension of the moment.

'Don't fight me, sweetheart,' her vampire lover said, still moving steadily within her, and Elena moaned for him. 'You're going to love this, we'll both love this. Let me have all of you, baby.' Elena shivered as Damon kissed a wet path down her throat, angling her head to the side and licked right over her pulse point. Something in her deep subconscious tried to stir her into motion, urging her to escape this predator's grasp, sending a frisson of fear down her spine that Elena noticed with a kind of negligent delight. 'Let go,' Damon urged her, scraping his fangs over her skin. 'Give in to me, Elena. Show me how hard you can come.'

Elena cried out, feeling the deep pleasure inside her start to coil and pulse in a delicious, hot, desperate frenzy.

Then he bit her, and she tumbled over the edge with nothing but _Damon_ filling her up, _Damon _drinking her down, _Damon _the name that she cried out, sobbing, begging as her orgasm tore through her whole body like a force of nature; destructive, uncontrollable and utterly beautiful.

**_TBC..._**

**Reviews give me the determination to keep writing, so if you have time please share your thoughts!**


End file.
